


PaperDolls

by CaptainDude (HandbagMurder)



Category: South Park
Genre: Age Differance, Angst, Big old dumb AU, How alternate can you make your Universe before it becomes OOC anyways???, Infidelity, M/M, Mentions of Kyle/Rebecca, Mentions of Past Kyle/Cartman, Mentions of Stan/Wendy, Romance, Swearing, Teacher-Student Relationship, This is so depressing, Why are they such Bad People??, alcohol use
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-31
Updated: 2015-05-06
Packaged: 2018-03-09 21:43:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 25,734
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3265409
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HandbagMurder/pseuds/CaptainDude
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stan is nineteen and already convinced that his life is empty and ultimately meaningless. Kyle is twenty seven and struggling to deal with the fleeting nature of his youth. They are both searching for something more permanent to cling to and like two blind bodies drifting through the universe, entirely by accident, they eventually collide. </p><p>College AU. Draws heavily on characterization of Stan in 'You're getting Old'.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. ONE: Stan

Stan never really knew what he wanted to do with his life after college. He figured that furthering his education was something that he did because his mother told him to, and that the loan would be something softened by the grants he won playing football and ice hockey, and that a bachelors degree in general sciences would be better than a high school diploma any day of the week so really, what did he have to loose? He was young, and he was lazy, and he didn’t have all that much to live for besides Friday nights in his dorm getting wasted with his friend Kenny from his home town, and sometimes he lay awake at night acutely aware of his own mortality and the meaningless stretch of nothingess spanning ahead of him like the void beyond the edge of the cliff. So what? There were plenty of twenty year old boys who lived like this. Plenty of well socialised kids washing down prozac with a bottle of blue ribbon every morning before they brushed their teeth. Guys like Stan Marsh who had no reason _not_ to exist, for sure, but even during the bright days that came after the depths of winter Stan couldn’t shake the feeling of having no real purpose beyond making it home in time to jerk off before he went to bed at night.

Most of the time, he tried to ignore it.

Right now, he is alive and he is feeling alright, and he is sitting in the lecture theatre preparing for the first class of semester two so he has a large drink bottle of redbull mixed with a generous amount of vodka just to pick him up sitting on his desk, and while the students all around him chatter he is texting his girlfriend in California state to let her know that he is thinking of her, and missing the sex they were having right up until the final few hours of Christmas break.

He looks up when the lecturer clatters in, and Stan knows its him because he is wearing the neat navy blazer and turned up jeans, and he is carrying a box of notes and a lanyard cluttered with keys and USBs. He looks like an okay guy. Sort of better looking than usual. Stan returns his attention to his phone and thinks to himself that yeah, this is his life. The beginning and the end. And someday sixty years from now he will be dead and in the greater scheme of things it really, really didn’t matter.

He looks up again when the lights overhead are dimmed, and the projector switches on with a loud beep.

“Hello everyone?” his lecturer has a pleasant voice, it’s smoothed with a familiar accent that Stan finds homely and almost a relief to listen to. “Welcome to introductory physics. I’m your professor Kyle Broflovski and this is my first year teaching this course. I’m looking forward to it.”

Professor Kyle Broflovski smiles, and Stan thinks that he is sort of impressed by how young he is. Not compared to himself, for sure, but compared to the other professors and lecturers he has seen around. The man, probably in his mid thirties, is a spring chicken by comparison, and his red hair is curly and thick enough to make Stan think he could pass for late twenties if the bar was dark and the woman was desperate. Thirty at the most.

“I thought I would start the course by handing out these summaries of your assignments and readings for the semester, and then field any questions you might have about the course content. If anyone has any suggestions or things the want me to cover, feel free to put your hand up now.”

No one puts their hand up, and Stan rolls his eyes. This guy _was_ new. Imagine, asking for class participation on the very first day. Professor Brolovski (or  whatever his name was) coughs awkwardly and scoops his stack of course summaries off his desk, before passing them to the furthermost student in the front row and indicating that the student out to pass them back.

“Alright,” he says, trying to seem unphased and failing. “Let’s get started.”

They go through the course plan and assignments one by one, and Stan highlights the appropriate sections but then gets bored about twenty minutes in so he starts doodling neon yellow stickmen in the corner of his page. The guy in front of him is playing minecraft on his laptop and several of the girls in the front row are browsing Pintrest. He hopes for his lecturers sake that the next lectures will be more interesting because otherwise, no-one who walked through that door was going to learn _anything_ and even though that was their fault, it would definitely end up making new teacher Kyle look bad. He seemed to have a reasonable grasp of the content, but his skills in public speaking seemed a little unpractised and his ability to efficiently use a projector and PowerPoint presentation was definitely in need of some development – Stan decided at about thirty two minutes in that despite all of thiis he kind of liked him. Maybe. He reminded him of an average kind of guy who had just walked into the theatre and started lecturing by mistake.

He nursed his beverage carefully and studied Kyle over the nozzle of his drink bottle. God, maybe the _teacher_ should have tanked up a little before he walked on in here with that lanyard of USBs, and poorly designed PowerPoint presentation with his office hours and contact details on the end. It was definitely a method Stan would recommend to anyone, and if it didn’t make a guy better to an outsider it sure as hell made his failure or humiliation less agonising to experience.

He finds it in his heart to applaud when Kyle wraps up, inviting students to come by any time to talk to him or meet with him if they have any issues with their courses. He is the only person in the entire theatre who is making a sound, and Kyle gives him a cold and dirty look as though he thinks Stan is making fun of him. Which he isn’t at all, he’s just a little drunk.

The time is ten am and ahead of him, Stan still has an entire fucking day. He hopes that things can only get better from here.

…

Stan is sitting in his dorm watching Kenny roll cigarettes with the strawberry scented papers he got from the headshop, and he has a headache. Its probably because its four am on a Saturday morning and his last alcopop had been at eleven, and even though he had been pretty wasted a few hours ago now he is tired and sore and every time he moves on his bed his foot nudges and empty bottle. He rolls them all off the mattress and they land with a thunk on the carpet, one by one. Kenny looks up from the desk and runs his tongue along the edge of one of the cigarette paper.

“What?”

“I dunno. I feel like shit.” Stan shrugs and pulls his beanie off. Kenny finishes rolling the cigarette and offers it to him.

“Cure what ails ya?”

“No. Cigarettes make me puke.” He falls back against his pillow and stares at the cracks on his dorm room ceiling, cob webbing their way across off-white plasterboard and making him wonder if some day, while he sleeps, the ceiling and all five floors above him might fall in and crush him. If that happened, he hopes he would die instantly and that way, he wouldn’t even notice.

He hears the desk chair creek under Kenny’s weight and then the click of a lighter flint striking.

“You’ve been in a crap mood lately, dude.”

“I know. I dunno… I can’t shake the feeling that this whole stupid life I’m living is a waste of time.”

When he closes his eyes he notices that the cracks on the ceiling are imprinted on the insides of his eyelids, and he imagines he can see paint flaking off them as they spread inch by inch above his head. He can smell Kenny’s cigarette, and it smells like strawberries too.

“Yeah, but college is important if you want a job, right?”

Stan can hear the unspoken desperation in that question. It’s hidden under a layer of calm reasonability but he knows its there because college is the only hope for someone like Kenny McCormick. He busted his ass to get to where he is today, his scholarships hadn’t come as easily as Stan’s had because he didn’t play any kind of sport, and he’s so lucky he’s smart because otherwise he would still be at home in South Park helping his parents cook meth for strangers. Stan knows he doesn’t have the luxury of discontent. He doesn’t have the safety net of financially sound parents. And Kenny _needs_ to have faith in the college system because if he doesn’t, he’s just going to end up back where he started. So of course Stan feels guilty, for thinking that he is wasting his fees and his time here. He feels bad that he thinks That college is stupid – for people like him who just need to waste a few years on drinking and sex and getting a piece of paper which says Stan has the skills necessary to work in an office for the rest of his miserable life. Or become an alcoholic geologist, like his dad.

“I guess so,” he lies, not wanting to mention that if he hadn’t been so lazy he probably would already be working with his father at the geological research centre and bringing home a paycheck large enough to live on. “But it’s easy for you to say. You’re smart and people might actually want to hire you when you’re done. If ,you know, you got a haircut maybe.”

Kenny scoffs, and Stan sits up again to look at him. He is short, blonde, and handsome in a rogueish kind of way. But he also looks a lot like he might be from a family of drug dealers, and even though he is one of the nicest people Stan knows there is something terribly off about him sometimes, when he thinks no one is looking his way. He has a lot of scars, Kenny does. And Stan doesn’t want to ask about them because he knows that then he will have to talk about his _own_ problems. Which compared to Kenny’s are probably stupid and irrelevant.

“If I keep my grades up I can beat out any nerd with a button shirt, Stan. This isn’t about looks you know.”

Stan doesn’t have the heart to tell him that unless he stops wearing hoodies and tank tops everywhere, he will never be taken seriously in the middle class world. Unless he buys shoes that aren’t Walmart sneakers, no one will even have him in for an interview. Stan figures he will work this out on his own.

“Yeah, okay Ken. I believe you.” He tries to punch his pillow into a less uncomfortable shape, and Kenny goes back to rolling cigarettes. He keeps the lit one pinched between his lips in a way which could only be described as unattractive and classless.

God, why was everything in his life so goddamned depressing?

The pillow, he finds, is uncooperative, and when he tries to lie down on it again he whacks his head against the wall. His head throbs and he finds himself on the verge of bursting into tears, even though it didn’t hurt _that_ much. Besides, what kind of a dick would he be if he started crying now? There is nothing around to cry about, except maybe that he misses being back home in shitty little South Park and he misses Wendy, who hasn’t text him back since two pm that afternoon because he was slightly tipsy and probably sent her something which made her upset. He does that sometimes and as such, he is afraid to check his sent messages to see what it may have been. On top of that, his dorm window is leaking and there is a spreading water stain down the wall from the snow on the windowsill – it smells and Stan knows it’s going to cost him a good chunk of his bond even though it’s not his fault. He has three readings and a five hundred word response due by Monday, but he doesn’t care about any of this and now he is thinking about it the burning feeling behind his eyes has returned and he has to squeeze them shut so he doesn’t start bawling while Kenny is around. He’s out of vodka and paracetamol. He doesn’t have any clean clothes left but he doesn’t have any change to do laundry. Everything about his life is so _shit_ but he knows he is the one who chose it and it could be worse right? It could always be worse.

He rolls onto his stomach and tries to breathe evenly, because there is a big empty feeling in his core which aches and it’s like it is sucking all of the oxygen out of him. He forces himself to think about something else. Anything else. He is alive right now and that should be enough. That should be enough. He tries to remember the last time he felt okay and the memory of a morning three days previously floated to the surface of his mind. What class was he in then? It was a Monday, his first lecture back. The professor’s name had been Kyle something, and Stan remembers thinking that he found him kind of neat. In the way he might have been interested in an exhibit in a museum or gallery.

Stan realises his thoughts are becoming disjointed and incoherent, but he fails to come to the conclusion he is falling asleep. By the time he remembers Kyle’s last name, he is already dreaming.

…

Stan’s drink bottle only has water in it today because Kenny had been thoughtful enough to pack his lunch, and Stan appreciated the gesture because when he woke up at five am the thought of actually getting himself a sandwich and a juice box out of the cupboard seemed so fucking impossible it could have been a joke. He had stuck the post it note message Kenny had written to the inside of his notebook because even though it was weird and unnecessary ( _treat urself buddy – jerk off in the toilets when you get a moment or two)_ he thought that it was weirdly kind. Maybe, if he was a little more of a sexual deviant, he might have taken Kenny’s advice.

He drinks his water while he is sitting in the theatre, and its been so long since he drunk straight H2O  that he forgot what it actually tastes like. The other students are sitting around chattering and going through their notes, and Stan checks his watch when he starts to suspect that the lecturer is late. Kyle Broflovski, Newbie extraordinaire…

He sits up a little straighter in his seat when he sees it, a head of brought copper hair bobbing down the stairs toward the front of the theatre, and a hush falls over the students as he passes because today, Kyle isn’t wearing the blazer or anything that might suggest he’s a teacher. In fact, he looks like a pretty ordinary kind of guy in cargo shorts and a plain grey sweater. Stan feels a weird feeling on the corners of his mouth, and he realises a little bit later than he should have that he’s smiling. When Kyle gets to the podium, he drops a small stack of manila folders on top and places his hand flat on top of them.

“Good morning everyone, I hope you all had a good weekend and a great week back at classes.”

His eyes flicker over the class, and Stan wonders of he notices that there are at east ten less students here this week than there were the week before. If he does, he doesn’t mention it, instead he taps the stack of folders  and leans against the podium casually.

“So, I have here the marked copies of all of your physics 131 end of semester exams last year. I expect by now you will all have your grades back, and that anyone who did _not_ take this paper wouldn’t have been accepted into this course. But what I’m not so sure of is wether or not you have all been informed that because this is a 200 level course with a B average entry requirement, anyone who scored lower than seventy percent on your 131 exams should _not_ have been accepted into my classes.”

This of course stirs up a murmur of confusion amongst the back few rows. Someone in the front jams their hand in the air, and Kyle Broflovski points to them discreetly.

“Yes?”

“… We were told that the entry requirements were pass only?”

Kyle nods, and Stan furrows his brow.

“They were. But that was _before_ I was put in charge of this course. Now, its seventy percent. That means that I expect the following students to come and see me after class to discuss their options.”

He picks a sheet of paper off the top of his folder stack, and Stan winces in sympathy for whomever might be sp unfortunate as to be booted this early in the semester.

He isn’t expecting his name to be at the top of the list.

…

Kyle takes his sweet, sweet time getting through his little ‘meetings’ with the other six students who scored less than 70%, and this gives Stan plenty of opportunity to drain his drink bottle and sit there fuming, picking bits off the crust of his  sandwich and flicking them across the surface of the desk while he waits. He can’t hear the things being said, but he does notice that everyone leaving is leaving either in tears or with an expression best suited to someone contemplating first degree murder. Even if he _wanted_ to hear what they were saying, he probably couldn’t have anyway because he is too busy being aware of the sound of his heart pounding in his throat, and the nauseous feeling in his stomach, and he very badly aches to just punch something but he knows from experience that beating the shit out of tables or walls does nothing except bruise his knuckles and fuel his anger. He spends the time scratching angry little lines into the soft desk surface with the nib of his pen instead, and with each scratch he tells himself that there must have been a mistake. Stan is _sure_ he got a higher score than that. Didn’t he? He had gotten a great grade! And he plans to argue this point to the death even though there is some part of him deep inside which doesn’t really feel anything about the whole issue.

Some part of him which says ‘who cares? Why bother trying? Even if you manage to stay in the end it doesn’t matter anyway.,”

And the more he thinks on this the less furious his scratching becomes, and the more sure he is that it’s not the end of the world that this is happening. He starts to realise that actually, he is only angry on principle, because who the _hell_ does Kyle Broflovski think he is? What gives him the right to march in here like a pompous redheaded piece of shit and start making judgements on whether or not Stan is good enough! Stan knows he’s probably not good enough, but Stan has arrived at this conclusion because he’s living his life and he knows himself. Kyle Broflovski doesn’t know anything about him. And Stan thinks quite savagely that a person like him never will.

Fucking asshole. Thinks he’s so great with his carer and his stack of files and that sweater which makes him so sure he has _everything_ figured out…

Stan jumps when someone calls his name, and when he jerks his head up he realises Kyle is looking right at him over the podium. All of the other students have left and together, in this large empty room with the high windows and the waxed wooden floors, they are alone.

“Stan Marsh?”

Stan grunts and scoops his notebook and plastic bag lunch into his arms when he stands. His shoes make a soft shuffling noise on the floor as he draws closer, and Kyle indicates he should look down at the papers he has spread in front of him. Sure enough, there is Stan’s test, and even though he only wrote it two months ago he looks at like he has never seen it in his life.

There is a big 68% written on the top left hand corner, and when he sees it Stan feels his guts turn all hard and knotty, and Kyle raises his eyebrows in a way Stan finds intolerably smug. He thinks about how much trouble he might get in, if he punches him in the mouth, and wonders how on earth he could ever have thought that this man was likeable. Seriously. He has the cold cynical eyes of an asshole and his nose is too big. Stan glances down at his hands and sees he is wearing a wedding ring, and he thinks to himself

_God lady. Its your fucking funeral._

“Hi Stan. Sorry it’s taken so long to get to you, but I wanted to talk to you last because you may be aware that your grade is actually pretty close to the required standard.”

Stan grunts again and tries to convey the idea that he really, seriously doesn’t care. Kyle narrows his eyes at him, and Stan observes that he seems to be cottoning on quickly. Apparently, Kyle isn’t an idiot.

“What? Don’t you have anything you want to say?”

A shrug suffices, and obviously annoyed Kyle Stands up completely straight – he is about as tall as Stan is. A little thinner. He pushes aside the exam on top to reveal a copy of his second research assignment and jabs a finger at grade. A perfect 90.

“Stan, your grades are incredibly inconsistent. Some of them are phenomenal, and others are decidedly poor, and I can’t figure out why that is because usually the final exam is a good indicator of a students over all competence in a course. Do you follow me?”

This time, Stan doesn’t even give him a shrug. He just stares at Kyle, waiting for him to say something that seems worth a reply. Kyle huffs and pushes a few rogue curls of red off his forehead.

“Look, I know you’re pretty pissed at me? But if it makes you feel any better I’m not going to be kicking you out. Your marks in the research projects are too good for that, and  after having the  department in charge of plagiarism and intellectual copyright check your work over I cant help but feel as though there is something compromising your ability to actually perform in an exam setting. I _want_ you in this course. This ninety is the highest mark of anyone else here. But we have to figure out a compromise before I can let you come to another lecture. Do you understand?”

For some reason, hearing this doesn’t actually make Stan feel that much better. If anything, it makes him feel _worse_ and he realises with a groan that he actually sort of wanted to be booted, because at least then he would have an excuse to sulk and kick up a big fat messy fuss about it.

“Oh my god. Seriously?” he pinches the bridge of his nose in exasperation. “Why? Why are you doing this? Can’t you just say I’m out or something? Or just let me through? _God_! I can’t be fucked dealing with this right now.”

He goes to pull his drink bottle out of his plastic bag before he remembers that it is not only empty, but even if it wasn’t empty it only would have had water in it anyway. He is far too sober and far too tired. He finds himself thinking longingly of the quiet, undemanding peace of sleep.

“What? You want me to kick you out?”

Kyle seems shocked, but not in the pleasantly surprised way so much as an ‘excuse you!’ kind of a way that makes Stan think that he may in fact be a naturally hot headed person. Usually, he would adjust his behaviour to avoid conflict with someone of this nature, but today he can’t be bothered

“Yes. Sure. I don’t care. You seem like the kind of person who might get a boner from that so who am I to stop you getting off on the power you have over my shitty meaningless life.”

Kyle looks an awful lot like Stan has just slapped his stupid, pretty face. Good. Stan is glad of it.

He snatches his manila folder off the podium and makes a rude gesture at his former lecturer. He has another class this afternoon and a tutor group, but as of right now his only plan is to go back to his dorm and get wasted. He wants to be so fucked by the time Kenny gets back from his classes that he has to be stripped naked and forced into a cold shower.

He’s young, and he still has the rest of his life in front of him.

The prospect, frankly, makes him feel sick.

 


	2. TWO: Kyle

 

It’s been just over a week since Kyle started his new job and without a doubt he can say that so far, all he’s gained has been eight incredibly shitty days.

He thinks he should be glad, that he has a house to go home to, and that his wife will have a meals waiting for him on the stove, but for some reason he doesn’t feel all that much like he wants it when he gets in the door and pulls off his jacket and his hat. The house is small, but he will be paying the mortgage for the remainder of his days, and if he has to be honest he _hates_ the big bay windows which face onto the street. Maybe if he liked staring at a road and the brickwork of the houses opposite it wouldn’t have bothered him, but he is a small town boy accustomed to snow and endless mountains. He grew up in a decent sized home separate from his next door neighbours. The terraced shoebox he now called home is a joke.

He dumps his satchel into the armchair in the foyer as he passes it, and makes his way through to the kitchen for  drink. Rebecca is sitting at the kitchen table with a sewing machine, and he would ask what she was making if he actually gave a fuck but he doesn’t. He greets her stiffly as he passes and listens to her sucking a great quantity off air into her lungs before she speaks.

“I made peas and lamb chops for dinner. I thought I would try and economise on time by doubling the cooking temperature in the oven and only baking for fifteen minutes but it would seem this is not an appropriate course of action. I hope you aren’t bothered.”

She resumes her sewing, and the clickety-clack of the machine rattles Kyle’s brain as he pulls open the warming drawer and finds that only a plate of shrivelled green peas and a misshapen chunk of blackened lamb await him.

“Oh.” He says carefully, placing the plate on the bench next to the sink. “Great. Thanks, sugarbee. I appreciate your effort.”

When he pokes the lamb with a fork and finds it to be like charcoal, however, he thinks that he can’t pretend like this meal doesn’t repulse him any longer.

“Say, Rebecca? Do you remember when it was, the last time the two of us went out for dinner?”

Rebecca turns in her seat and stares at him blankly.

“My birthday,” she tells him, and he almost sighs because of _course_ she would remember that. That’s the precise kind of thing Rebecca would remember. “August sixteenth. We went to olive garden and if I recall correctly my soup was far too salty. I found that for the service we received, the whole affair was really quite overpriced.” 

“Right. Well that’s great I guess. But uh… how would you feel about going out for dinner tonight maybe? Just for a change?” he thinks about it briefly, realises that that argument may need some furthering, and adds “or, to celebrate my first week at work.”

Rebecca pauses her sewing, and Kyle feels his chest tighten as she considers it. He realises how depressing it is, that something as tedious as deciding whether or not to go out for food can inspire a sensation not unlike that he used to feel when anticipating explorative sexual activity or the prospect of getting high as fuck with that one guy in high school.

“Well, no not really. We have good food in the house and Reuben is upstairs sleeping. I think it would be unwise to wake him.”

Kyle wants to suggest they leave the child at home, and live on the edge for just this one time in four stable and predictable years. For some reason, he never really warmed to the idea of having a baby, and some part of him still resents the fact that Reuben is a testament to the pressure of an overbearing mother and an unfortunate lapse in birth control dependability. He feels like a bad person for thinking this, and he knows the guilt would probably consume him if he let it, but Kyle is stubborn and fortunately he is accustomed to bearing inconvenience. It’s only eighteen years of parental care and a lifetime of companionship with this… reasonably pleasant and intellectually attractive mate. It could be worse.

He sighs and jabs his finger in his peas to check the temperature, and when he finds them cold he doesn’t bother complaining – instead he takes a fork from the drawer and sits down at the table next to Rebecca’s half sewn quilt.

“Nice pattern,” he comments mildly. She gives him a polite smile and informs him that she is still only learning, but would some day like to be a little more accomplished. Kyle takes a bite out of his burnt lamb chop and watches the stranger in front of him insert thread in the eye of the machine needle. It’s horribly bitter and hard to chew, but he doesn’t say a word as he swallows it down.

…

Kyle arrives a little late at work the next day, his arms weighed down with weekly reading assignments and a briefcase which is stuffed with yet more papers and a squashed muffin. His coffee is cold and he’s managed to spill it down the front of his jeans, and thank _god_ he wore jeans because even though he isn’t supposed to he isn’t afraid to acknowledge that if it wasn’t for ultra-tough denim he probably would have scalded his balls right now. So that’s something to be grateful for, he supposes.

He almost walks straight into his office, before he remembers he has to unlock the door with his key, and it is while he is digging in his ass pocket and balancing his mountain of possessions he is interrupted – not by anyone of importance telling him to go back home and change into formal trousers, but by a young boy he’s never seen before. A boy who looks a lot like he might have walked into the university and gotten lost.

“Uh… Hi?” the boy is petite, Kyle thinks as he frowns over his stack of papers and manipulates his key into the door. “Can I help you?”

He stands up off the blue plastic chair he was sitting in and nods.

“Yeah. Professor Broflovski right? Want some help with that?””

Kyle hands him his briefcase and with the free hand, turns the handle on his office door.

“That’s me?”

“Oh awesome. Well, hi. I’m Kenny McCormick and im here to talk to you about my dumbass friend.”

He seems to forget who he is talking to, for a moment, and Kyle finds it kind of charming when his hand flies up to his mouth in shock and he swears again.

“Fuck! Sorry.”

Kyle shakes his head and gestures the boy inside.

“This is kind of weird but I need you to come in here and put that case down on my desk anyway so…”

Kenny nods and slips through the door. Kyle pulls it shit behind them and lets the remained of his papers all fall out of his arms and land in a disorganised pile on the floor.

“Fucking hell.” He mutters, pushing a few tendrils of hair off his face. “Sorry, what did you say you were here for again?”

Kenny looks between him and the pile of papers on the floor like he is waiting for Kyle to acknowledge them. When he doesn’t, he coughs quietly and crams his fists low into the pockets of his faded hoodie.

“Uh… my friend? Stan? He’s this guy in your class who like… flipped you off the other day.”

Kyle knows the guy.

He groans and drags himself around his desk to drop into the chair, and he can’t help but think that Stan Marsh _would_ be friends with a guy like this. A weird kid, one whose manners and general pleasant demeanour doesn’t match his rugged, slightly trashy appearance at all. A nice teenager, a good person, except with youth and charm flowing out his nooks and crannies like rivers from a mountain. Kyle is distinctly envious of this Kenny person, and also of Stan, who may be a rude piece of shit but it doesn’t take a genius to recognise that he’s smart and he’s almost certainly popular with the ladies. He’s got the whole fucking _world_ in his hands.

“What does Stan want?” he asks, and he rubs his temples in agitation as though he feels a headache coming on. He doesn’t, but he feels like he might take an aspirin or two anyway, just to be on the safe side.

Kenny stops staring around his office with a start.

“What?”

“Stan. What does he _want_?”

“Oh!” he pushes a hand through his hair and smiles. “Right. Well, uh… nothing, actually. He doesn’t know I’m here. But I just wanted to say sorry he was such a dick to you and that you really shouldn’t kick him out of your class? He’s a cool guy, he’s just a bit of a tool sometimes.”

Kyle is unmoved by this testimony. He wants to ask Kenny why he is wasting his time by coming by his office, but instead he hears himself sighing and asking

“Mr McCormick, what is it you’re studying here at this university?”

Kenny seems surprised for a moment, but he answers the question with an ease that convinces Kyle he is being honest.

“… Med Science and Biology?”

“Okay. What for?”

“So… you know? I can get a job?”

“Right. Right. So when you get this ‘job’ of yours, do you think you would appreciate having some stranger in ripped jeans and a guns and roses hoodie showing up at your office trying to tell you how to do it? Or do you think that your degree in the area of Med Science and biology will be enough to give you the right to decide how you want to perform your duties for yourself?”

Kenny looks a lot like Kyle has just personally insulted his mother.

“Excuse me?”

“Excuse you what? It was a simple hypothetical question. Now if you don’t mind, I have work to do. That work does _not_ include running around after children like Stan, who clearly don’t feel any desire to learn what I have to teach. Goodbye.”

He drains the last of his coffee and tosses the cup in the bin to punctuate this conclusion. And yet, Kenny doesn’t seem to have moved from his place? In fact, his expression seems to have taken o the arrangement of one who has decided he isn’t moving a single inch until he gets what he wants.

“Jesus Christ.” He says, and once again Kyle gets the impression that Mister McCormick is someone who did _not_ come from an upper middle class family like himself. “Aren’t you just the fuckin’ shit king of turd mountain?”

Kyle wants to retort to this, but he doesn’t think he can.

“I’m what?”

“An asshole, Professor. You’re an asshole. Pretty rich of you to act like Stan is the dickhead when you’re the one who won’t even listen to what I’m trying to say. Stan Marsh is a _nice guy_. He’s my bro, and I love him, and I don’t piss around loving anything that can’t get me fucked or high or buy me a packet of chicken nuggets when im broke as shit.”

“… and what does that mean to me though?”

Kenny rolls his eyes as though Kyle is particularly dense, and in some weird way Kyle feels a stirring of respect in himself for this guy. Like wow. He reminds Kyle a lot of the boy he wishes he could have been in high school. But then again so do most boys with any kind of passion in their eyes.

“Stan is the kind of person who buys you nuggets and he doesn’t even ask if he can have one as payment. And I know he got shitty with you the other day but that wasn’t his fault! And he’s really sorry. And you should give him another chance because I seriously, _seriously_ think that the only party loosing shit if you boot him is this physics department and your discussion workshops.”

“Mister McCormick, whether or not Stan is intelligent isn’t the issue. The issue is that I don’t want to waste my time trying to tech someone with a bad attitude.”

“Stan doesn’t  have a bad attitude! He’s just… emotional?” he rolls his hands and tries to find a word that suits. “Or like… he’s kind of deep? But not too deep. Kind of like if you got Van Gogh drunk and made him play football. He’s cool… man.”

A little huff of air slips out of Kyle’s nose in amusement, even though he is making a conscious effort not to be taken in by Kenny’s easy charisma.

“Tell you what.” He decides to humour this boy just a little. “If you can get mister Marsh to come and ask for his place in my class back, he can have it. Does that sound okay to you?”

Kenny nods very keenly, and his eyes are blue like frost on a summer morning, full of a clearness and seriousness Kyle adores.

“You are so on.” He says.

But Kyle doesn’t want to take him too seriously.

…

Kyle doesn’t do all that much work that morning, and he almost forgets that at eleven he has a 300 level lecture to deliver so he ends up showing up late for that, and when he gets back to his office that afternoon he is pissed to discover that he still hasn’t picked his papers up off the floor. His knees creek when he bends down to scoop them up, and he feels very old because he struggles to stand up straight afterward, and eventually he has them all neatly piled on his desk but he doesn’t feel any better – Kyle always hits a nadir around one pm, but today its particularly bad and along with the usual moodiness and inability to focus on marking assignments or finishing an article he’s been working on for two months he feels absolutely _ravenous_. Like he could eat a whole cow in one sitting of he had to.

He wishes he had change for the vending machine, or at least that he could go down to the café in the humanities building and get a sandwich, but if he spends a single cent of money on anything that isn’t diapers of the mortgage he knows Rebecca will look at him with those unmoving hazel eyes and say ‘I’m disappointed, Kyle’.

He doesn’t think he can handle that because honestly, Kyle is disappointed to.

He looks around his office, a small plain room with white walls and a bookshelf behind his desk, and out the window which shows an exquisite view through the window of the building next door. The office on the other side is currently unoccupied, but Kyle has a foreboding feeling that he and whoever moves in are going to become well acquainted in the way that workmates tend to be, standing around the water cooler at breaks and asking if the other was planning to go to the staff cheese tasting next week at the fancy bistro by the town hall. He is already trying to think up excuses. His carpet is an uninspiring grey, and even when he draws his blinds there is a watery yellow light which fills every corner of the space but it isn’t a cheerful light so much as an insipid and uninteresting one. He has tried putting some books on the shelves but finds that sitting at his desk and knowing that a whole shelf full of worthless self help books is sitting behind him is a good way to constantly remind himself that he is unhappy with how his life is working out – at least, he is unhappy enough too spend thirty dollars each time the unity bookstore down the road comes out with a new guide to finding yourself through whatever. Religion. Family. Cooking.

In the end he just filled his shelves with folders, and put a photo of his wife and child on his desk. He thought about replacing the photo with a cut-out from one of the Penthouse magazines he has somewhere in the attic but he still hasn’t gotten around to it. That would probably look really unprofessional anyway.

He drops down into his computer chair and sighs.

For some reason, when he was younger, he thought he was going to be a rocket scientist by now. Sleeping on a bed of money and making it with supermodels on the weekends. For some reason, he thought that he wouldn’t be so creaky. So tired and washed out and uninspired, and he thought that he would still be able to handle his drink and have a good smoke once in a while, but instead he spends his Fridays at home and he thinks about how when he wakes up in the morning there are ceases around the corners of his mouth. His eyes are dull, his flesh is weak, and he checks the mirror every morning for grey hairs.

Why the fuck did he think that getting a job in the central hubb of youth and spontaneous, frivolous joy would be a good idea?

Kyle forgets sometimes, that he can be a bitter and critical person. He forgets sometimes how much he hated his peers growing up because he never had friends, he never shared their interests, and some part of him was always jealous of their easy sociability. Their happiness. Their enthusiastic recklessness and wow. Working in a university was a bad idea. Who had talked him into this anyway?!

He remembers that he had done it because he hadn’t known when to say he didn’t want to do it any more, and he no more ended up in this position by choice than Kenny McCormick arrived in his office that morning by accident. There’s a reason for the things that happen, and even though each moment he lives he wonders if this moment might become a reason for something great he’s never been brave enough to take the chances needed. He resents himself for that.

He grinds his teeth to block out the sounds of his thoughts, and logs into his desktop PC. His email account is already open, and he goes through his recently received with no particular interest in anything (faculty meeting on the twentieth, message to staff requesting the return of a mug to the kitchenette on level three, can student x please have a three day extension on their project…) and not even the vaguest idea of how he is supposed to spend the next several hours before he goes home. Not that he _has_ to stay here, per se. he just doesn’t want to goo back to that boring old house and that boring old wife. Maybe he is having a midlife crisis or something?

He is only twenty seven.

He jumps when the chime indicating that he has received a new message interrupts his thoughts, and he checks the sender before he reads it just in case its spam that can be deleted straight away.

marsh.stan@gxxxxx.edu.us

Oh boy. He wonders who _this_ could be.

He decides he will leave the email until tomorrow, when he is in a better state of mind to handle it. He spends the rest of his afternoon playing pacman online. By the time he leaves the office at six pm, 130,800 is his high score.

 

…

 

MESSAGE RECEIVED 14.29:01.21.15  
 _Professor Broflovski._  
 _My name is Stan Marsh and I am a student in PHYS121 this semester. You May remember me as the student who stormed out of your class the other day because I only got sixty nine or something in the exam? My asshole friend Kenny has told me that I should apologise and try to organise some kind of situation where I can continue to take this course. I think he is probably right._ _I’m sorry for loosing my temper. Please let me know what I can do._  
 _Stan._

 

MESSAGE SENT 09.40:01.22.15  
 _Hi Stan, Thanks for your message._  
 _I am willing to accept you into my course provided you agree to attend tutoring sessions weekly to ensure you remain on track with study. Is tomorrow afternoon okay for you? I will be free from 1pm so let me know if that is acceptable._  
 _Kyle Broflovski, Ph.D._

 

…

 

Kyle lies awake in bed and listens to the unhappy sound of Rebecca breathing - the nose clip she wears makes her breathing feel wrong and off pace but its better than the low, droning sound of her snoring. He watches the shadows that the trees outside his bedroom window make moving quietly in the wind, and thinks about how he will probably spend the rest of his life staring up at the ceiling at night and seeing the same shapes. The idea makes him feel an awful lot like he is already on his deathbed.

God. Depressing. And even though he is exhausted he can’t stop thinking about it and it keeps him awake. The bedside clock says 1.19am and he has a big day tomorrow. Just like every other day, he has responsibilities and things to do. He doesn’t want to do them, sure, but he doesn’t really have a choice.

He wonders when, if ever, there will ever be a moment in his life when he gets a reprieve.

Kyle always thought that some day, when he was older and he had done enough work to arrive at a point that was secure and happy, he would get a reprieve, but now he is older he is only finding that there _is_ no reprieve, because there is always, always, always somewhere further to go. First he goes to high school and then he has to go to college. Next thing he knows he has _more_ college and his mother is telling him to get married, have a child, and finish his Masters so she can brag about it to her friends. His dad tells him to get a house, and then he figures he may as well finish his Ph.D, and it doesn’t matter what he achieves he is never going to be free from the cycle of starting and ending and starting again. It’s all just an infinite sea of responsibility and a grim but safe march towards old age, and Kyle was naive to think he would ever reach a point where he wasn’t drowning. Where he wasn’t working. There is no island in the ocean of life, and there never will be.

Kyle will know rest only in the grave.

He wishes he could go back to the point in his life when he _should_ have messed around, where he should have had fun and he should have been a boy like Stan who flipped off his teachers and slept with whoever and played sports on weekends, because excepting that one perfect summer it was something that Kyle, so wrapped up in making sure he succeeded, never had the time or inclination to do. He wishes he could swap lives with that boy, and he knows it’s a weird and indecent thing to be thinking because Stan is his student and they aren’t even on good terms, but the envy he feels when he thinks of those blue eyes and that dark hair and that spry young body is so deep it resonates in his bones. In the cells of his blood and the deep dark crevasses of his dreams. If only he could have the freedom to fuck up ad be reckless and just be _young_. Young and unattached and free from all the demands of the world.

He rolls on his stomach so he can’t see the shadows on his ceiling any more. Next to him, Rebecca makes a strange, sinusy sound he hates.

Eventually, Kyle Broflovski falls asleep. 


	3. THREE: Stan

 

It’s Kenny’s fault.

Everything that’s ever gone wrong in his life is Kenny’s fault.

He is sitting in an office which smells like vanilla scented candles and staring at the textbook in front of him while Kyle busies himself trying to open a window. He probably wound be here if it wasn’t for _someone_ threatening to tell his mother, and he wishes he could have pretended like he didn’t care but if there is one thing in this world Stan marsh still cares about its making sure his mother and father never find out that he is leading a life of absolute ennui and money wasting. He wishes Kenny wasn’t such a well meaning person, because a shitty friend would probably have just let him stay there in his bedroom moaning about how much he hates his crappy life and in this moment this is all Stan ever could have wanted, but just like the water filed drink bottle and the pack lunch Kenny was the kind of person who did things when Stan said he didn’t feel capable of doing anything,

He had emailed professor Broflovski  on Stan’s behalf, and a few days of terse negation later this is what’s happening and private tutoring sounds like something that should be in a terrible, terrible porn movie and not Stan’s actual real living everyday life.

Kyle drops his ring of keys on the desk, and the countless USBs clatter against the wood. Stan notices he has a key ring which has the logo of the Denver broncos on it and he resents that. Some petty part of him wants to shout that Kyle has no right to be touting a keychain with the Denver broncos on it. Seriously. Fucking hell.

Kyle catches him looking and sighs heavily hen he sits down in his fancy ass computer desk chair.

“Broncos fan?” He asks. Stan shrugs.

“Not a sports person.”

“Says on your enrolment information you’re here on football scholarship.”

Kyle gives him the smuggest smile he has ever had the misfortune to see in his life. Stan glowers and returns his gaze to the textbook in front of him. He feels so little – like a child sitting in front of an adult, even though he knows Kyle isn’t that much older than he is or even that much different. He is wearing jeans and raglan shirt today, and he has shed five years like a snake sheds its skin. Stan might even be able to believe he is sitting across the desk from one of his peers.

“Yeah. Well I guess I am then. I used to play for Colorado under eighteens.”

“Yeah I know. Says that on your enrolment too. I was born in Jersey, but I lived in Park County for a long time when I was growing up. I used to play basketball and hockey on the high school team. So we have that in common I suppose?” he pulls open his desk drawer and extracts a bag of cheesy poofs. “I get the feeling you aren’t really interested in making friends though.”

“You feel right.”

Kyle sighs and shakes his head just a little.

“Stan, don’t be like that. We could be buddies. You and me have a lot we could talk about!”

San gets the impression that Kyle is talking down to him, and he snorts because his inability to be subtle about it is reminiscent of his awkward PowerPoint presentation skills as displayed in his very first lecture of the semester. Clearly, Kyle has taken the three month teaching course he enrolled in toward the end of his PhD research a little too seriously, and his experience actually engaging with persons less qualified than himself is zero.

“Don’t condescend to me, Brof-whatever your name is. I’m not a kid you know. I’m probably only a little bit younger than you!”

Kyle’s eyes flutter a little, although mostly he remains unfazed.

“I’m not condescending to you.” He lies. Stan once again feels the urge to punch him.

“Oh yeah? How old are you? If you want to be buddies then you should probably tell me, just so I know I’m not being lured in here alone every week by some sick pervert with a college kid kink.”

A look of discomfort and revulsion passes over Kyle’s face.

“Dude!”

And that dude says more than a confession of Kyle’s _real_ age ever could.

Stan feels a part of him shrivel up and die, because no way would some pretentious, fogey old professor with more than ten years experience say that. Kyle is in his late twenties, if not younger. And here he is sitting in an office with a bookshelf and a desk fan and it smells like vanilla fucking candles or some other lame shit for people who have their life together. Stan really _is_ a comparative child.

He forces himself not to snarl something horrible and tries to avoid meeting Kyle’s eye. It’s hard, but not as hard as it is to resist the urge to start bawling. He wonders if Kyle has noticed he’s miserable yet, or if he is under the impression that Stan is just a petulant brat.

He suspects that the latter has never been more obvious.

…

There is nothing quite as Zen as the inside of a toilet bowl, and as Stan sits in the bathroom with his bare legs pressed against cold tile he looks into the glossy surface and sees the vague shape of his reflection looking back. His mouth tastes like vomit and his stomach feels sore and empty, but Stan stays there a little longer than he needs to because he is lost in thought and for the first time in a long time he is thinking clearly. But there is a very high possibility that he isn’t thinking right.

He sighs and rests his chin on the seat. Usually, he would be disgusted by the thought of doing this but tonight his head feels heavy and he can’t hold it up much longer. Besides, if he gets some weird disease and dies that’s one less thing he needs to worry about so practically speaking, doing so is actually a really good idea. Stan lets his eyes flutter closed, but still the gleaming white of the toilet shines and he focuses on breathing evenly, focuses on staying calm and stopping himself for gagging on air.

He drunk too much too quickly. He didn’t even manage to get drunk. He is glad Kenny isn’t here to see this because otherwise he would be standing at the bathroom door cussing him out and if that was happening Stan could never hope to focus on his thinking. And he can tell from the uneasy sense of guilt and embarrassment in his belly that he has a lot of thinking to do. Specifically, he needs to concentrate on working out why he had gone off at Professor Kyle Broflovski like that, and whether or not that whole ugly interaction had been the result of his short tempered nature or Kyle actually being the biggest asshole who ever had the indecency to live on this earth. Stan doubts it was the last one. Is his little outburst going to hurt his chances of passing?

He groans and pushes his hair off his forehead, and finds that his roots are damp with cold sweat. He hates how the fluorescent light in this bathroom makes him feel colder than he actually is, and he hates the low droning sound of the fan which turns on automatically when someone is inside. From his spot down here on the floor, he feels very small. He can almost sense the world rotating on its axis, and he has never been so aware of the planet earth hurtling through the emptiness of space. On the inside of his eyelids he can see the cosmic ballet in which he plays no significant part, and its hard to believe that this is reality, this hard floor and this glassy thread of consciousness that is _him_ is what constitutes his entire world and everything in it. He feels bigger than his body, almost separate from it, and yet the solid porcelain fixture he is clutching is so incredibly grounding he wants to meld with it. Become a part of it. He wants to fuse his personage with this toilet so that he never has to wander aimlessly through the chaotic sea of thoughts and people and meaningless actions again, and he never has to remember that after all of the energy he wasted resenting Kyle Broflovski nothing has changed. Everything is still the same and he is still just a drunken fleck feeling almost comically queasy as he sits here like a wretch on the bathroom floor.

God. He made such a huge dick of himself today! And for what?

Stan sniffs miserably and realises that his eyes are watering, because he’s on the brink of crying but this time there is no one around to judge him so he lets a few empty tears slide out just to relieve the pressure he is feeling inside his skull. He wishes he had been a little more patient, because Kyle seems like a nice person and he doesn’t deserve to bear the brunt of Stan’s mood swings. Just because he has a perfect life and Stan is envious doesn’t mean he’s a bad person, and Stan finds himself wishing he could wake up tomorrow in Kyle’s place, oblivious to the pointlessness of everything and convinced that the biggest problem he has to deal with in his life is one particularly snotty student. It must be nice to have that security. That surety and confidence in ones own right to exist. Stan imagines it must be kind of like the security of hugging a toilet but he can’t be entirely sure.

He thinks to himself that he should probably say sorry, just so he can put the mess behind him and get back on track. If he is going to spend a futile lifetime progressing through milestones and social rituals, he should probably try and make the whole process as painless as possible. When he comes to this understanding, he realises a miserable sort of calm.

He sits up straight and blinks open his eyes. There is a moment where he thinks that he is going to retch again, but like all things in life, it passes.

 

Stan checks himself in the bathroom carefully, making sure his high school leavers jersey and jeans give off just enough of a boy next door vibe that Kyle might be tricked into thinking he’s a nice kind of a guy. The trick seems to work well on old ladies and people who have a high opinion of jocks and middle class American boys, but Stan fears that Kyle is going to be a bit too smart to be taken in by all of this. If Stan has to rely on his charms and giving of an air of genuine remorse to get his apology accepted, he knows he’s positively screwed.

He checks his watch and heads down the corridor to the department office anyway, and when he gets to the door with the plaque that says ‘K Broflovski, Ph.D’ he hesitates and tries to remember if this was the right office hour after all. Kyle won’t be expecting him. He hopes he isn’t seeing anyone else in there, because if Stan has to wait he might loose his nerve and go back to his room to mope about it. And moping can only result in further resentment toward the man who is supposed to be teaching him physics.

He knocks on the door, and waits with his bottom lip pinched under his teeth for the resulting ‘come in?’

When he pushes open the door, Kyle is at his desk, and he’s wearing a pair off glasses that make Stan’s knees all wobbly. Like he’s never seen a man with thick framed readers before.

As soon as Kyle sees him he scrambles to pull them off, and he closes whatever notes he had been examining so he can stare at Stan like he’s a sideshow or something. Roll up roll up, come see the boy who hasn’t slept for two days as he grovels to keep his place in a class he doesn’t give a fuck for.

“Stan?”

“Yeah. Hi. I don’t have an appointment but you said if I had any questions about the course I should just come by.” He slips inside and closes the door behind him. Kyle’s brow furrows, but he composes himself quickly and points to the chair on the other side of his desk like he isn’t bothered about it. He looks a lot like he has some things he wants to say, but he is refraining until Stan gets whatever he needs off his chest first.

“Okay? How can I help you then?”

Stan scans the desk in front of him and tries to find a visual anchor, something he cam fix on so he doesn’t get all nervous or agitated as he’s talking. He spots a photo next to the desk phone and he wonders if the people in the picture are Kyle’s wife and child. If it is, there is a gross inconsistency in the physical attractiveness of the two of them. She is a dreary looking brunette woman with a pair of infantile butterfly clips pinning back her hair. Kyle has features which make him kind of bizarre, but also very handsome. Is it normal to consider the aesthetic value of a lecturer, Stan wonders, or is this just one of those things his head does to distract him.

“I came t apologise.” He says, looking even harder at the photo of woman and child. _Christ,_ is the new thought that drifts slowly to the surface of his mind. _does that ugly ass baby ever look half baked!_ He might have sniggered if he didn’t know that laughing at a persons brand new progeny is usually frowned upon. Instead he refrains and awaits Kyle’s response. He can’t see his face so he hopes that whatever expression he is wearing, it is kindly. Or at least, tolerant.

“What for?”

“For being such a douchebag to you yesterday. I didn’t mean to, I was just in a bad mood and I’m pretty stressed out about this whole seventy percent thing.”

It’s a weak lie, but it’s believable in principle and he feels like Kyle is falling for it when he sighs, and his chair creaks under his weight as he sits back and gives Stan a glance over.

“You stress out a lot?” he says, and Stan nods.

“Is stress the reason your grades are inconsistent?”

That’s probably better than any explanation Stan could have come up with for this phenomena, so he goes with it and nods his head again. This time, he chances a glance in Kyle’s direction. He sees that his professor has a ball of rubber bands in his hands and he is playing with it idly, and his eyes are fixed on Stan’s face in a way that makes him extremely self conscious and squirmy. He looks away again, in case he starts to blush.

“I guess I’m always worried that I’m not going to do well. I’m scared my parents will find out and make me go home, and I;m scared that if I let anyone help me out with my work the results I get will be less valid than if I managed to do it on my own.”

Kyle hums, and Stan hopes he can’t see through him with those sharp brown eyes.

“Stan, do you even _want_ to be in college?”

The question comes out of nowhere, and surprised Stan snaps his head up to stare at him. Kyle’s expression hasn’t changed, but god its like he is seeing right through to Stan’s bones.

“I… do I what now?”

“Do you actually _want_ to be in college? Because I get the feeling that right now you’re just telling me what you think I want to hear. And I also get the feeling that im not the only person witness to this display. I know you’re a smart kid, Stan, but I really don’t feel like your heart is in it and I don’t think I can help you if you aren’t honest with me about what it is that’s actually wrong.”

Jesus Christ. What is he? A fucking mind reader?

Stan wants to cover his chest with his hand and tell him to fuck right off, because when Kyle says stuff like that he feels kind of violated but also kind of relieved and its crazy – if his college kid act is a grimy cracked ceiling, Kyle is the first person to notice the lines cob webbing across his face, and that also makes him the first person to look a little closer and see that these cracks might be serious. They might be straining under internal weight and one day, they might give way and Stan will be crushed underneath the weight of all his fears and anxieties and that heavy empty part of his soul which makes it impossible for him to even entertain the thought of carrying on. Stan stares at Kyle across the desk like he has seen him for the very first time, and in that split second Stan is convinced that he is the only real thing in the universe.


	4. FOUR: Kyle

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> this about to get darker before it get lighter ok

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> IMPORTANT:  
> T/W for sensitive father/parent issues, particularly pertaining to contemplation of abandonment and/or emotional neglect.

Kyle wanders amongst the stacks and runs his fingers over the spines of the books like they are the notches in the back of a lover he once had, and he thinks very fleetingly that maybe his life would have been different if he has stayed with that person – maybe he would be happier, or maybe would have killed himself by now. He likes books because they remind him that the world is not just defined solely by his experiences but by the individual experiences of everyone who has ever lived and ever will. He will never know what its like to be someone else, but he can get a vague idea from reading books and for a few brief moments it’s almost like he’s happy. Almost like he’s free. Being able to spend as much time in the university library and take out as many books as he wants is a sort of perk of employment, because it means that at least he can draw a little closer to his personal private dream of knowing everything, reading and experiencing everything, so that he can die always remembering how vivid and wonderful the world could be outside of his stupid little life.

He finds a book in the shelf about social networking culture, and decides it looks interesting enough, so he drops down into a chair in a corner lit only by wall lamps and warmed by the little heating vent in the floor and starts reading.

He is so tired from lying awake the night before that it’s only fifteen minutes before he falls asleep.

…

The cleaners wake him at ten pm, and when Kyle picks his groggy head up off the table he regrets almost everything he’s ever done in his whole entire life up until this point because his neck is sore and his cheek is bruised from being pressed flat against the table in front of him – he wipes the puddle of drool up off the surface as he apologises to the cleaners and hurries to gather his shit together so he can leave. How embarrassing. Falling asleep in public like an old man or something.

He tries not to look too rumpled as he takes the lift downstairs and re-calibrates his position in the university. He is still dazed and slow thinking because his brain hasn’t entirely woken up, and the darkness of outside is disorientating. He makes it out of the library entrance, and the cold air startles him. He remembers he should probably check his phone.

Six texts from Rebecca. His heart sinks.

He slips his phone back into his coat pocket and decides not to open them. He can listen to her ask him what in earth he was thinking wasting a whole evening he could have spent with her and Reuben when he gets back to the house. Ah, but now he’s thinking about how he is starting to wonder if he _wants_ to go back to the house yet. The idea fills him with a grim dread, and he wonders if he should (instead of catching the subway back to his house) get on a line in the other direction and go and go and go until he ends up somewhere new where he has never been before. Somewhere no-one knows him, where he can go and live and try new things and never look back on right now or this town or his stupid house and job. The temptation to just _do_ it and start a life wandering is so extreme that it makes him feel sick with longing. He decides he can’t risk taking the subway and actually acting on these urges, so he pushes his travel card low down into his pocket and starts walking in the general direction of his suburb. God knows if he was a weaker man he would probably have talked himself into just walking by now, leaving the house on foot and going somewhere new and of course no one would be able to stop him, but getting on a subway and leaving is just too much of a temptation because the subway tracks go further and faster and he is pretty sure that it’s there abouts his ability to resist ends. Hopefully, this will only be a temporary fear, because of he has to spend the rest of his days walking to and from work to avoid temptation then he is going to have one hell of an exhausting lifetime. More than it is already.

It is cold outside, and as he walks, his breath fogs.

The city is pretty lit up at this time of night – people are still driving places and doing things and there are lights in the trees, frost on the windows, and everything is so vividly coloured it makes Kyle wonder if he has ever really seen colour before. Has he ever _really_ been aware of the city, or aware of the smells of life and the feeling of cold air on his cheeks, or has he been walking around with his eyes closed and his shoulders hunched and his mind fixed blindly on the concerns that trouble zombies like him? Things like taxes. Whether or not he should be investing in shares in google or if he should buy a better lawnmower so he has an easier time trimming his tiny allotment of grass out back every Sunday morning. He ponders on whether or not the vividness, the sharpness and the loudness of the world moving around him, is a side effect of his misery or if it is just because the last shadows of dreamland are still hanging over the edges of his mind - Waking life is never usually this picturesque, and he watches it all with a disconnected awe which makes him think about humanity as it is, a vast organism always building and always expanding and erecting skyscrapers like fingers reaching into the void to touch god.

The sky overhead is devoid of stars, but as he walks under a row of naked oak trees on the roadside, he notices that there are fairly lights strung in the branches and that the horizon of buildings is glittering like the entire universe is sprawled out and sleeping on the ground. There are no need for stars in this world, where everyone is too busy being enchanted by the slick steel structures and electric lamp posts casting cones of light on cracked pavements. Who makes these structures, these lights down here possible? People like him of course. Heartless, meaningless people, with nothing to live for except to enable the progression of civilization. But to Kyle this is not a civilization of passion – this is a civilization of materialism and false stars, and he has never been more miserable to acknowledge it than he is right now. He is older now than he ever has been before, and yet he is younger than he ever will be again. He takes a step forward, looking down at the blades of grass glittering with frost in planter islands as he crosses road ways, and the idea that he could very easily just walk in front of an approaching car right now comes to him. It passes in a second but that, it seems, is all it takes for his blood to turn to ice and his heart to clench like he has just seem a monster in the darkest corner of his mind. He wants to scream but he knows that out there, insulted by the way mankind has snubbed them, nebulas and galaxies and clouds of stars keep turning, and even if he called into the void until his lungs turned to dust no one would hear him. No one else in the universe knows or cares that he’s here.

He digs his hands low into his pockets and tries to walk a little faster. He is sure that in his entire life, he has never been so hideously alone.

…

Kyle doesn’t know who he’s trying to kid.

He has no idea how to write a lecture, and he really never will. He should have had this put together four months ago, but he kept putting it off in the hopes inspiration would strike. It has not, and now he’s high and dry, sitting in his study in his house he hates staring at a blank PowerPoint presentation and a whole lot of open internet tabs on subjects he might want to include in his lessons and a few that he might not. Sometimes he thinks he has an idea and he starts typing, but then he realises what he is saying is complete drivel and he really can’t be fucked coming up with references for evidence to back him up. He considers just doing a whole lot of boring as fuck calculation sheets but then he realises he can’t even be bothered writing questions to pose to his class. He sighs and removed his glasses, rubbing the bridge of his nose and trying to shake the dust off his brain. Why is he so goddamned tired? It’s only… uh…

He checks his watch, and his jaw drops when he sees that the time is ten forty eight pm.

Holy fuck. Last time he checked it was only just gone seven.

Kyle feels an uncomfortable sensation wiggling up his back, that makes him simultaneously aware of how urgent this is, and also absolutely unable to sit still. He squirms in his desk chair, trying to find his focus, but he can feel the pressure welling up inside him and he needs to take deep breaths but the physical ability to do so has escaped him. He closes his eyes and sucks in air through his nose. A shiver runs down his back and he wonders if that is just because he’s scared shitless, or if because someone, somewhere, in some other life time, has just taken a walk over his grave.   

God, what can he _do_?

He tries to think of something he wants to achieve with this course. Something he wants to accomplish besides simply getting enough kids to pass for him to keep his post. Not that they are going to boot him if they fail, but having a class with a good pass rate would look good for him. It may even encourage the university to offer him more research opportunities and less interactions with the average student. Something that would be ideal for Kyle, considering how recent interactions with a one Stan Marsh had served to remind him very clearly how much he despised that particular human demographic.

Oh fuck. That guy.

If Kyle could inspire some kind of learning in _that_ guy, then he would consider it a job well done. How on earth could Kyle get someone that apathetic to engage? Maybe if he got up there naked and armed to the teeth Stan would sit up and pay attention to him, at least long enough to wonder what on earth Kyle is supposed to be doing. Ugh. He is so _obstinate_ , but Kyle has been over his assignments and grades so many times and at the same time he is so fucking promising it makes Kyle sick. Everything about him is untapped potential, his looks and his mind and his alleged skills on the football and hockey fields. All the same, he just doesn’t think Stan cares, and for some reason he can’t wrap his mind around that. If _Kyle_ was the one with blue eyes and black hair, with a sharp brain and a nice body, then he would go out into the world this second and take from it whatever he wanted however he needed to go about it. Maybe that is just him being resentful, or maybe that is the voice of experience that makes him long for the opportunity to do some things differently. Kyle isn’t sure, but what he is sure of is that he’s kind of becoming aware of how different he and Stan are.

Stan is a child and Kyle is a miserable adult.

The wall is invisible, and impenetrable, and it feels somehow far more isolating than the social walls that used to surround him when he was a teenager - He was a weird and lonely growing up, but at least he was weird and lonely among his peers. Now he is weird and lonely among people far younger than he is, and for a brief second he wonders if Stan has realised yet that someday, he will be alone too. He will be old, and he will regret not doing the things he could be doing now. Kyle considers making his next lecture about this, a pre-warning or something to that effect, but decides against it because really, that was off topic, and it probably wasn’t rational or smart to direct an entire lecture to one single student alone.

He sets his jaw and rolls up the sleeves on his stupid button shirt. Honestly, he hates wearing these things, and he had ever since he was only a child and his mother used to make him wear them to the synagogue every weekend, but Rebecca had purchased this one for him and even though the florid paisley pattern makes him want to vomit he feels like he should wear it out of respect to the woman he had willingly and consciously chosen to marry. The woman he used to love once upon a time and who maybe, if he wasn’t so goddamned dissatisfied with his own self, he still might have loved now.

It’s too hot in his office. He has to stop letting his mind wander and concentrate. He can’t go to bed until he has finished this fucking lesson plan.

He is just about to start typing something about Isaac Newton when there is a knock on his study door. Without waiting for a response, Rebecca lets herself in and Kyle feels a prick of annoyance because hey, what if he had been _busy_ in here. Watching porn or something and trying to jerk off. What if he had been crying, or smoking the last scrap of weed he kept in a baggy in the top drawer of his desk, or maybe he might have been conducting a black fucking mass who cares the point is she cant just _walk_ in here like she owns the place! He deserves that much, doesn’t he?

She sets a mug down on his desk next to his notes and briefcase, and he can tell from the smell that she has brought him a concoction of watery instant decaffeinated coffee. The kind of thing he wouldn’t have used to douche his asshole at the best of times. Despite this, he forces a smile, and thanks her graciously for the drink.

“You’re welcome.” She says calmly, inviting herself to further make herself comfortable and taking a seat awkwardly on a spare spot next to his potted spiderplant. “I’m glad I caught you while you weren’t busy. I have something rather important I need to talk to you about.”

Kyle’s heart sinks, and he reaches for the coffee and has a big drink even though it tastes like dirty soapy dishwater. He considers telling her he _is_ busy, but instead he says

“Okay? What’s wrong?” and she looks at him as though she doesn’t appreciate being spoken to so coolly.

“It’s about Reuben.”

“What about him?”

Kyle hadn’t seen him for a while. Mostly because when he was awake Kyle was at work or sleeping. He feels bad every time he thinks about it, because he _knows_ he has a responsibility to be more of a feature figure in the Childs life, but it was strange how even three years after his diagnosis (but post-natal depression is something only women get, right?) he still doesn’t feel any different about it all. He still doesn’t feel any less wrong or weird living this lifestyle, and trying to adjust to the fact that he is responsible for actually _making_ another human being. Sometimes he thinks about it too much and makes himself sick. He gets confused because he doesn’t recognise himself and he can’t reconcile what he knows about the inside of his head and how the rest of the world seems hell-bent on perceiving him. It isn’t even that Reuben is a bad kid! He is bright, friendly, and well behaved, and if he wasn’t Kyle’s own, (perhaps if he was Ike’s, or a cousins, or his brother)  he thinks he probably would have been able to handle the whole situation better. He tries as hard as he can to think of the boy, to make the best decisions he can for him and for his future, but he fears that there will always be a fragment of himself that is waiting earnestly for the day that he grows up and moves away and Kyle can be just _Kyle_ again. Not husband, father or breadwinner attached.

Speaking of breadwinner, Rebecca is still talking, and oddly enough the subject she is addressing is absolutely on the nose for his train of thought.

“Well if you remember,” she starts, smoothing the plain brown knit tube skirt she is wearing over her bony thighs, “when we entered this marriage, and subsequently found ourselves in the reproductive fashion, we agreed that my conceding to leaving work was in exchange for your equal effort in rearing our young. Now, I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, but over the last several weeks approaching the start of your new semester, your hours at home have decreased significantly and I am concerned that soon Reuben will be asking your whereabouts. In the usual manner of a four year old I mean.”

She pauses, and Kyle fees his eyebrows creep upward, urging her to continue with whatever the fuck it is she thinks this is already so he can go back to work. Eventually, she does.

“While it would be interesting to document the removal of a significant parental face in the life of a partially developed child, I don’t think our son is the ideal test subject. Don’t you agree?”

Oh shit. Kyle _loathes_ when she speaks like that. He might have found it quirky and charming once but now it just makes him want to bash his head in. He sips his coffee tersely and nods.

“Mmm? Well, I have a lot of work to do, is all. What are you suggesting we do about that?”

It would seem, Rebecca already has an answer. When she says it, Kyle feels himself suck a breath and he wants to give her a good shake for even _suggesting_ that she go out and partake in something so frivolous.

“I wish to join a woman’s bridge club Kyle. The lady next door invited me and excepting the wine tasting and gossip I’m sure will proliferate in that setting it sounds like something worth investigating, if only briefly. That means that on Fridays from now on, you need to be home by five PM. Reuben’s babysitter finishes then, you see?”

Kyle sees. He sees indeed and what he sees he _hates._ As he sits there processing, he finds himself noticing little things about Rebecca he despises in petty, childish ways. The way her fingers are square and unattractive. The spider lines around her mouth and the way that one of the buttons on her cardigan is missing quite obviously. He relishes them, and he is repulsed by his own ferocity as well. It all just kind of melds together into one big black ball of negative thoughts and he almost feels it overflow when he nods mildly, and tells her that is okay.

“Next Friday starting?” he enquires, and Rebecca nods.

“Yes Darling. Next Friday. I really appreciate it.”


	5. FIVE: Stan

Stan hangs back after the lecture because he wants to talk, and he has refrained from handing in his latest assignment in the drop box outside the department office because he feels like he needs an excuse to talk to him even though Kenny says don’t worry, lecturers are there to field questions and help him learn every step of the way. Stan thinks that he would need a good few drinks before he could walk up to Kyle without an excuse ready in hand, and it’s been almost six days now since he had last been drinking. He would be proud of himself for this, but for some reason it makes him feel kind of pathetic.

He waits until the last student has filed out of the doors before edging up to the podium at the front of the hall, and Kyle gives him a cool, weary smile as he approaches which makes Stan’s stomach turn all fluttery. Thank god he isn’t angry that Stan has come to see him.

Why would he be?

“What is it?” he asks, picking a plastic drink bottle almost exactly the same as the one Stan puts vodka in some mornings off the table next to his podium and pulling open the cap. “Is that your assignment for this week?”

“Yeah. But I had some problems with question two. Can you help me?”

He passes the sheet of questions over to him, and Kyle nods.

“Hang on.” He digs around in his pockets for hiss glasses, and sets them carefully on the bridge of his nose. Stan observes that they are a little smudged, and that behind them Kyle’s eyes look kind of bloodshot and unfocused. Is he okay? He seems really tired…

“What exactly was the problem you had?” he asks, looking at the questions. “Because just at a glance, these answers all seem absolutely perfect.”

“Oh… uh. Well.”

Stan hadn’t thought of that.

His cheeks darken and he fiddles with his fingers self consciously while Kyle studies him, and he feels about as transparent as a sheet of cling film but Kyle takes his time dissecting him, assessing what he is doing and why it is he hasn’t git any _real_ reason to be here. Eventually, he coughs and sets the assignment on the pile of other paperwork he is about to take back to his office.

“You know, you don’t need to make up excuses to come talk to me. I have office hours for a reason and you can come by any time.”

“Oh. Well yeah, but I just… I don’t want…”

Kyle arches an eyebrow and removes his glasses. Stan realises that he has dark brown eyes, and that around his pupil they are a vivid gold colour. Stan has never noticed anyone’s eyes before – he had known Wendy for seven years before one day, she did him the favour of informing him that hers were blue.

“… After fighting so hard to resist the first couple of times, you feel like you are betraying yourself by coming willingly?”

Stan wants to tell him that those kind of comments are condescending and unkind, but he cant because they also make him want to get down on his knees and paw at Kyle’s trouser cuffs for forgiveness and validation. He’s sorry he made the mistake of fighting it, he will do anything in the world if only Kyle would like him…

“No.:” He says uncomfortably, staring at the ground. That’s not it.”

“What is it then?” Kyle starts clearing up his stiff, and Stan realises that he is going to have to make this quick – there is probably another lecture in here, and he has a tutorial in about ten minutes.

“Well, actually, I wanted to talk to you about what you said the other day. About me not wanting to be here kind of a thing…?”

Kyle grunts and clips his neat little briefcase shut.

“Okay? Stan, do you think it could wait maybe a couple of hours? I have another three classes today and the next one starts in ten minutes. Come by my office this evening and we can talk properly.”

“What time?”

“Four o’clock okay? If you prefer, we can meet at the café by the library. I usually go there around three for a coffee and snack or something.”

Stan nods and feels his stomach turn over anxiously. That sounds like a good idea.

 

…

 

He hates coffee, but he accepted one anyway because Kyle offered to buy and now he is sitting at a small table for two with him which feels far too intimate – they should have sat down at one of the other tables available for four. Kyle still looks tired but the coffee has perked him up somewhat, and as Stan sits in silence he watches as his professor struggles to send a text message to someone Stan doesn’t know. He is reminded of the fact that him and Kyle are two strangers whose lives have overlapped just briefly – Stan will never know about the people Kyle sends messages to on the other end of that phone and Kyle will never know the emptiness that plagues Stan every minute. Soon, they will diverge, never to meet again.

He considers mentioning how slow and out of practice Kyle seems to be at texting, even though he has an iPhone he holds the device as though he doesn’t know how to use it and it’s very awkward. Even Stan’s fifty year old father can use an iPhone and he spends most of his time blind drunk.

He coughs and asks Kyle if he wants any help. His company looks up and gives him a terse smile.

“I’m not the best at touch screens.” He says, passing the phone to Stan. “Tell her I will be home at around seven.”

Stan finishes typing a message to this effect and sends it off to the recipient _Rebecca_. He forces himself not to read the previous string of received messages because that kind of behaviour is creepy and bad and he doesn’t think he could live with himself if he did that.

He realises his mouth is dry, and he thinks as he takes a sip of coffee that he is going to need at least two bottles of beer when he gets back to his room so he can wash this taste out of his mouth. Kyle thanks him and takes the phone back.

“So, what was it you wanted to talk about again?” he asks, and as if out of habit he swipes a few red curls off his brow. Stan chews the inside of his cheek and sighs.

“You were right about me.” He says simply, sitting up straight and running his finger absently around the ring left by his coffee cup on the table. “About my not wanting to be here. And I’m sorry I didn’t stick around to listen to what you had to say.”

“… Uh, okay. Well there was nothing else I really wanted to say to be honest with you. I was just telling you what I had observed so far.” He shrugs a stiff, lukewarm kind of shrug and Stan’s mouth is as dry as sand again, just like that.

Damn him. Damn him and his beautiful eyes and his great education and his perfect life. Damn him who has everything all sorted out, who has family and meaning and something to get up for in the mornings, and most of all damn him for making Stan ache to be him. Ache to pull on his skin and feel him like a costume or a prison for his bones. Stan wants to lean across the table between them and crush him to him, until they stop being two separate people and Stan can know reprieve from this feverish obsession with this single human being and everything he stands for. Everything Stann wants and loathes and fears with all his heart and soul.

“Oh. Well. You observed right, anyway. I _don’t_ know why I’m here and I don’t really _want_ to be. I just kind of came because Mom and Dad wanted me to, and it’s better than staying in South Park and becoming my father.”

“Well, maybe you should be talking to the counsellor about that? I’m not qualified to listen to these concerns of yours. I think the university has a free mental health services you can use if you want to.”

Stan laughs at him. Kenny had made him go to the counsellor in November. His pessimism and cynicism and conviction that everyone in the world would be better off moving into a cave somewhere and dying one by one had driven the man to tears. Stan had been branded a troublemaker who didn’t really want help and was only coming to appointments to waste time, and they forbade him to come back.

“Dude. I thought you said you wanted to be friends.”

Kyle looks at him in surprise, as though he hadn’t realised Stan had been making an effort to befriend him.

“Well, we can be I suppose. In theory?”

He doesn’t sound that convinced.

Stan humphs and slurps a mouthful of coffee.

“I’m no good at making friends.” He says flatly. “I used to be great at it. But now…” he shrugs and Kyle just stares at him like he’s done something kind of weird and sort of distasteful.

“… You’re admitting that you don’t want to be at university, because you think that sharing this personal information will make it like we are friends?” he clarifies, as though he doesn’t understand how those things are related. Stan nods. He is a little self-conscious and embarrassed, but he really is desperate to be validated by this man. To feed off him and learn from him and find in him whatever it is that makes him so successful. He will do whatever it takes and if that means jumping down in front of him with his emotions bared then so be it. Its impulsive, definitely, and reckless, but Stan hasn’t done something impulsive and reckless in so long that he takes a tingling satisfaction from it all. It’s almost cheering. But not quite.

“… You know, when I said that we could be friends, I was more thinking we could relate about like, football teams or something.”

Stan shakes his head, like the stubborn child he is, and stares down into the rich milky brown of his coffee.

“Why bother?” He murmurs sulkily. “I can make small talk about pointless shit with anyone at any time. I want to talk about the meaning of life, Professor, and about how I could go to sleep tonight and die and I would never even know.”

It feels like a dream to actually say it out loud. Surreal and yet visceral. Suddenly, he is too conscious of every part of his body, and the way his voice sounds. The way it echoes in his skull and how he can hear himself speaking when he thinks even though he isn’t making a sound.

Kyle immediately blushes. And it’s not a small blush either. It spreads over his cheeks and ears and very nearly matches the colour of his hair. It’s obvious he hadn’t been expecting that one. In fact, now Stan has said that, his whole demeanour shifts from one of stand-offish superiority to one of confusion and discomfort.

 “Stan, I’m your teacher?”

“I know.”

“So, I can’t talk about that kind of stuff with you?” Kyle’s voice waivers and he glances fugitively around the little café. There are a group of students in a corner booth but otherwise, there is no one to witness this exchange. The barista is cleaning the used saucers and cups and the French inspired café music in the background feels like a tissue paper disguise for the capitalist and nature of all businesses great and small. “You need to talk about this kind of thing with an actual professional.”

Oh geeze. He could have been a little tactful, couldn’t he?

Humiliated, and not the least fucked off, Stan sinks low in his chair and adds another two beers to the tally of drinks he is planning to have when he gets home. Six days no drinks? Fuck that. Bullshit waste of six days is all that was.

“Oh come on. You _can_ help me!”

“I _can_ get fired.”

“Seriously? Who is going to know? I wont tell anyone because trust me, this is an embarrassing spot I’m in right now and I don’t actually want to go around advertising it. _Please_ Kyle?” he stares at him, begging with his eyes, and watches as something in Kyle’s face seems to shift and give way. “At least Add me on facebook and we can set up a time to meet up this weekend?”

Kyle shakes his head and Stan’s stomach sinks bitterly.

“I don’t have a facebook.” He says.

“What?” memory of their age gap comes back to Stan’s mind, hard and fast and vivid. He almost feels sick. “I mean so? I never had one for ages either. I’ll help set you one up.”

But then Kyle sighs and sags around the shoulders, and Stan realises that the other man is lying. Eventually, he gives in.

“You’re the weirdest kid I’ve ever met.” He says, and when he meets Stan’s eyes he looks exhausted and broken – like his first few weeks as a lecturer has shattered all the spirit he has ever had. “But you know what, fine. Fuck it. If I get fired though, I’m going to be so pissed at you!”

Stan feels a rush of relief, like a first breath of air after thinking he was about to drown. It takes him a few moments of light headedness to realise that he had been.

 

…

 

They go to Denny’s that weekend and Stan wants to ask what it was, in the end, that motivated Kyle to go along with what he said because now in the aftermath it starts to feel unreal and strange. Its slowly dawning on Stan that Kyle is right – this is  indecent behaviour and Kyle could be fired. Social cohorting with students is definitely something that a university as well known as this definitely wouldn’t allow.  Their conversation is awkward and gapppy, and even though Stan had made it clear that he _doesn’t_ want to talk about things like sports or growing up in small-town Colorado, these are the subjects that end up filling the empty space where no one really has anything to say.

They are so discomfited. The cheerful theme in the restaurant is making Stan feel unclean and miserable. He has already drunk two extremely overpriced beers and his cheeseburger hasn’t even arrived yet. Stan feels a lot like there are some things unsaid between them, but he is also starting to winder if doing this was a huge mistake. Kyle has already done the maze on the back of the children’s placemat, and now he is doodling atoms in the top left hand corner. Stan coughs and points at them critically.

“Chemistry minor?” he asks. Kyle shakes his head and sets down the plasticy red crayon.

“Biology, actually. I wish I had taken chemistry though. My Dad said it wasn’t as good as physics.”

“Why not all three?”

“Triple majors aren’t a thing they let midstream students do.” He smiles wanly and Stan furrows his brow.

“Midstream?”

Kyle nods.

“When I was in college I wasn’t that bright. Actually, your grades now are similar to than my grades when I was doing honours.”

Stan feels his jaw drop.

“You must have worked so hard!”

Frankly, he can’t imagine doing that much work for anything. God, Kyle is clearly some kind of a madman. He sighs and turns his gaze out the window, to the grey, drizzly street outside.

“Cheeseburger and BLT with no B?”

The waitress delivers two plates of burgers, and Kyle thanks her graciously. Stan eyes his burger and wonders why he would order a BLT without the B, but then he realises that with a name like Kyle Broflovski, he may in fact be from a Jewish family. Stan has no particular experience with Jewish families, except when he was seventeen he read Portnoy’s Complaint.

He doubts that particular work of literature is a very appropriate standard by which to define Kyle, and so he pushes it to the back of his mind and orders another beer. Or actually, better make it two. The waitress eyes his empties sitting in front of him, and he thinks that she is clearly wondering whether or not to decline him.

“Do I seem drunk to you?” he asks, and she sniffs and writes his order down.

Kyle gives him a cool look when she turns and walks away.

“You shouldn’t be rude to waitresses.” He says, opening his burger and carefully peeling the gherkins off the bun. He sets them carefully on the edge of his plate, before proceeding to stack four fries from the pile on the side carefully over the patty and closing the top again.

“Sorry.” Stan says, taking a big bite out of his burger, gherkins and all. “I’ll give her a good tip.”

They eat their dinner silently, and Stan starts to think about all the things he wants to say but can’t seem to spit out into the space between them. Why isn’t Kyle saying anything? Stan really _needs_ this!

It’s amazing, how convinced he has become that this man is his only hope. And its kind of sad that a single moment wherein he accidentally acknowledged something Stan had been begging someone to notice for what felt like his whole life could be enough to make Stan suddenly and completely enamoured, but here they are and every part of Stan’s body is quivering, waiting for him to do something which makes it all okay. For him to give Stan meaning, motivation, or reason to keep existing or maybe even let Stan take his life and live it, as if it was his own.

The longing he feels is impossible. It’s like every cell in his bones and in his blood is being pulled in Kyle’s gravity. He’s so lonely and so needy and he’s empty like a there’s a hole inside him that this cheeseburger isn’t going to fill. The meat tastes like cardboard and the bread, like all bread, is flavourless.

“… Tell me more about when you were just starting in college?” he fumbles, and Kyle heaves a deep sigh.

“It was a long time ago.”

“Nine years?”

Kyle nods.

“It’s like infinity.” He says, and Stan knows that feeling because he is sensing it stretched between them right now. Age. Experience. Nine whole years and Stan isn’t even sure he can keep living that much longer. “I can’t even remember what I was doing then or what I wanted. I guess…” he trails off and Stan wants to gush a him, ask him if he was happy or if he knew, from the first day he walked through the doors, what he wanted to do for the rest of his life.

“You guess?”

Kyle smiles nervously and takes a bite of his meal.

“I wasn’t that different.” He admits. “I was single for a while, and then in second year I met Rebecca and we go married when I graduated. High school was probably a more exciting time for me except, even then there was only a little while when I thought I would be  doing anything besides what I ended up doing eventually?”

“Yeah?”

 Kyle nods and thinks carefully as he chews. Stan studies the constellation of freckles on his nose and thinks they are cute. Even if he is in his late twenties, they probably give him an attractive youthfulness when he is cheerful.

“One summer, I met someone I thought I would end up being with forever. They were supposed to become a millionaire and a criminal lawyer with a mansion in every major city in the world.”

“Sounds like a psychopath.”

“Accurate. Anyway. They were two years younger than me but they had a pair of Ray-Bans and a fake ID so I guess I fell for it. When my parents found out the kind of people I was hanging around with they sent me to boarding school for senior year. That’s the most exciting thing that’s ever happened in my life.” He gives Stan a look like ‘you asked for it, prepare not to be impressed.  “I never saw that person again and here I am. My life is boring and I’m sitting in Dennys on a Saturday with a student because I have literally nothing better to do.” He pauses, as though there is something on the tip of his tongue he wants to say, and Stan raises his eyebrow and reaches for his empty bottle of beer. When will his next one arrive? He is so parched. 

“… Do you think that’s kind of pathetic?”

Stan is taken aback.

“No.” he answers honestly. “Not at all. I mean, it’s the American dream right? A house and a family and a desire to you know… be a functional member of society.”

Kyle’s eyes flutter as though he isn’t sure if he believes that.

“… I dunno.” He says eventually. “Sometimes, I get a little bored with my life.”

“but you’ve achieved so much?” Stan tells him. “And you’re still so young? When I’m your age I hope I’m able to even get out of bed.”

Kyle stares down into his plate of fries and half eaten burger like it is troubling him somewhat. The conversation is over when the waitress comes back with Stan’s beer, and they recede into total silence.

 

…

 

Stan sits opposite Kyle on the subway and even though he is kind of tipsy he doesn’t miss the way that Kyle looks super tired and a little haunted, and he keeps gazing at the subway doors longingly as though he is wondering about all the possibilities they contain, all the locations they open and close and the kinds of people who pass through them every day. Now, Stan’s thoughts are progressing drunkenly along those lines, and he thinks that maybe if he gave Kyle a stroke on the face he would stop frowning and whisper his secrets so that Stan could share them, hold them in his head and his heart and find in them the secret that he’s been searching for for so long.

He stands up and almost falls over again, but in the end manages to sit down next to Kyle and sling an arm sloppily around his shoulders. Kyle stiffens and turns his head just a little to stare at him.

“You know Stan, I don’t think it’s a good idea is we meet again.” He says,

“But why?” Stan’s head falls on Kyle’s shoulder, and he smells the scent of his aftershave for the first time. “Please Kyle. I need you to teach me…”

Kyle sighs and turns his face so his nose is pressed against the smooth hair at Stan’s crown.

“I’m a bad teacher.” He says, “You can’t learn anything worth knowing from me.”


	6. SIX: Kyle

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TBH I can’t remember how old I said kyle was earlier in this story so that’s awkward I guess.

Kyle sits on the subway to work Monday morning and clutches his coffee tensely in his hands. He purposefully avoided sitting in the same seat he sat in with Stan marsh that Saturday, even though it was empty and he wanted to just to see if there was any lingering warmth of him, or the scent of beer and teenaged sweat on his skin. He feels guilty because he fucked Rebecca last night for the first time in weeks, but he doesn’t feel like his mind was really where it should have been and he doest know how to face up to the truth of the matter – he had been fantasizing about his ancient lover, that boy he fucked twice and for one perfect week thought he would be with for the rest of his life, and somehow that familiar face became thinner and darker and he realised that from the moment Stan Marsh sat down in his class that very first day, things were never ever going to be the same.

He’s ruined now. He’s broken. He feels like someone has cut him open and he is gushing vital fluids all over the train seat. He’s amazed no-one is staring at him. No one is watching him think his thoughts and take his breaths and they can’t sense that his heart feels like it is about to lock up because it’s beating so frantically and he’s only twenty seven. He’s only twenty seven and he can’t live the rest of his life in this state it’s _impossible_.

He wishes this was one of those things that could fade away. Something that could disappear or flicker out like a candle at the end of its wick, but that isn’t feasible and he feels it deep inside. He hates Stan for doing this to him. For being so blind and so open like he’s a gash or a book like the books Kyle loves too become lost in. Between his covers is a whole new world - the life and mind of a boy who is only young and oh so smart and if only Kyle was younger then maybe they could be together an dthey could share these moments. Maybe if Kyle had known Stan then, he never would have made so many mistakes in his life.

He gets off the subway in a daze and finds that as he makes the last few blocks on foot he is thinking about how in some other lifetime, he and Stan could have grown old together. In some strange way, he feels _young_ now. He feels like he is only a child and he is already wasting his future away by doing nothing. Why is he doing nothing?

He stands in the front of Stan’s class and gives a lecture as if he is on auto pilot. It takes every ounce of discipline he has in his body to resist the urge to look at that spot he usually sits, even though he can see him sitting there out of the corner of his eye. Everything he says comes out like he is a robot, and he hopes that they are getting the information they need but only very shallowly. There is really only one person in the room he is thinking of. Only one he cares about.  That one person he wants to sit with again and look at and split open so he can read him and know him and on his death bed remember him so he knows how vibrant and intricate the world is. How outside the prison of his skin and his mind there are other people and their lives are just as rich as his own.

Or even richer.

Stan has galaxies in his head, and his eyes, and he bleeds all the dreams and aspirations of everyone who has ever lived. He is a black whole, a totality and the supermasssive boom at the end of the universe where everything comes back together to a point smaller than a single atom. He is creation and the chaotic nature of all living things. He’s so empty and he contains everything. He’s the most important person Kyle has ever had the privilege to meet.

At the end of his class, he scoops up all of his things and leaves before Stan can approach him. He doesn’t think he can handle facing him today.

He doesn’t think he can handle facing him ever.

 

…

 

FACEBOOK (1) MESSAGE NOTIFCIATION

 

Stan Marsh: hey Kyle, did I get drunk on Saturday and do something that pissed you off?

 

Kyle sits at his desk with sweaty palms and looks at the words on his screen in front of him. He has a can of monster energy sitting next to his pile of assignments to mark and a half-drunk coffee on top. The bottle of herbal ‘NUTRIlife Stress Eraser + Mood Balance’ supplement he had grabbed on impulse at the train station a few weeks ago is empty and tossed uselessly in his wastepaper basket with a balled up draft of a letter he really wanted to send, but didn’t think he could.

_Dear Rebecca_ , it started. _If you have reading this, I have caught the earliest possible train to Vermont where I plan to sit on park benches for the next fifty years and drink wine until I get cirrhosis._

The clock on his desk says it’s only two pm, but Kyle feels like he has been up for two hundred hours. He rubs his eyes and tries to re-read the message without feeling queasy and embarrassed.

_No_. He types as his reply. Then he pauses, reconsiders this, and backspaces until the reply box is empty again. For some reason, ‘no’ isn’t the right answer, even though really that hadn’t been what happened at all.

He groans in frustration and tries to respond again.

_No. you were fine. Like I said on Saturday, I just don’t think us seeing each other is a good idea._

No, no. that isn’t right either. That makes it sound like ‘seeing each other’ is a thing that is actually happening. There is no way that is viable, and by mentioning it like that Kyle is technically making it so. He doesn’t want to do that. He doesn’t want Stan to think that he ever saw him as anything more than a student, because he didn’t right? He certainly never saw him as a symbol of all of Kyle’s wasted dreams. And he certainly never felt any string emotions about that or about this child, with blue eyes and dark hair and the kind of face that might have belonged to a high school enemy when he was young.

Kyle flushes for no-one, in the privacy off his own office, and deletes his reply.

He is trying to think of a way to define the dynamic that has appeared, entirely without his wanting or planning, between himself and Stan Marsh, but frankly the English language comes up short. There _is_ no way to describe it, because it’s nothing. It’s barely even a shadow or blip on the radar that is his meaningful relationships. He supposes, that if he had to consider it honestly, he would say that it was the brief intersections of their lives which reminds him of the words he glimpses in books, except with Stan there is no protective shiny glass of imagination separating them – Stan is _real_. He is touchable and he exists and his life is running its course in the same sphere as Kyle’s and it’s uncomfortable because it just feels so _intimate_. Even though Kyle tries to force himself away from that thought, he knows that there actually _is_ a possibility. Something could be real here, and spontaneously he understands that the thing he is seeing isn’t the actual existence of a relationship or dynamic but rather the fertile and vulnerable space where one could potentially grow.

And he knows that in some parallel universe somewhere there is a Kyle fortunate enough to give in. a Kyle even more lonely than he is right now and who just isn’t strong enough to turn down the company of someone exactly like the person he wanted to be.

The lucky bastard.

He sucks his teeth and types in another message.

_I told you on Saturday evening I don’t think we can talk any more Stan._

He presses enter and considers clicking the little x on the corner of the page, but he knows that if he does he is just going to keep checking if Stan has replied every five minutes and have hurt feelings if he hasn’t. He keeps the window opens and tries going through readings he wants to assign his 200 level classes, but still he can’t concentrate. He keeps checking every three seconds and then after fifteen minutes he almost jumps out of his chair when the notification sound goes off.

He knocks his energy drink off the desk and curses loudly when he scrambles to check what he has said.

_What? Oh man, I must have been so drunk._

And then a pause.

_Why though?_

And Kyle should have been prepared to explain but when being put on the spot he found he doesn’t want to. He _really_ doesn’t want to. Again because he doesn’t want Stan to know that he thought there might be even a shadow of something between them.

_I just don’t think it’s a good idea._

He feels his heart sink when the next message comes up, and as he reads it he feels an awful lot like he is signing his own death warrant. He had told himself this morning on the train that he wasn’t going to break. He has sworn he wasn’t going to give in. He is betraying himself, and he knows he should be able to resist the temptation, but also he is lonely in here and he feels all clogged and heavy and miserable so he can’t really be blamed for not thinking straight. He hopes? God, who is he kidding.

_What? Dude! Seriously! Please hang out with me? I don’t actually have many friends and I hate myself for begging but I will because you’re the first person I’ve met in forever who isn’t a complete moron. Don’t be a jerk!_

Stan is such a teenager! He’s such a little boy. But Kyle cant help adore that about him. He feels hot and he can’t sit still, but he replies.

_Stan. Don’t do this to me?_

He presses send then waits a few seconds. Before typing a little addendum.

_Meet me at the café in twenty minutes and we can talk about it._

 

…

 

Stan looks okay today.

He looks like he hasn’t slept, but he is wearing jeans and a sweater Kyle finds charming. He sits down and pulls off his beanie, and he checks his watch to make sure he has made it in time (he has) before looking up and apologising for being late.

“I was at the train station.” He explains. “My girlfriend was passing through so I met her for a couple of hours over lunch.”

Kyle feels his heart twinge like it is a balloon freshly popped. He chokes on the coffee he was sipping and Stan gives him a quizzical look.

 “I didn’t know you had a girlfriend?”

“No big.” He smiles tiredly. “She went out west after high school. We hardly talk any more.”

Kyle reads between the lines and knows this means that they only got together over holidays to fuck. He watches with a strange sense of jealousy in his gut as Stan grabs a packet of sugar crystals out of the little bowl on the table top. For some reason, thinking about Stan having sex with people makes him feel violated and uncomfortable. He doesn’t like it, but then Kyle has always been awkward when it came to sex. It’s always so surreal to think that there are other people in this world who have rubbed their genitals together with someone else. He’s not the only human being alive who has done that.

Stan tears open the packet, and pours the contents into his mouth. “How’s your day been?”

The sound of sugar grinding on his teeth shatters the silence. Kyle struggles to match the earnest, needy voice he had heard in Stan’s facebook messages to the expression of forced calm on the face in front of him, but he doesn’t miss the way that the boys hands are shaking. That his knee is jiggling frantically under the table and at the high places on his cheekbones, little blossoms of colour are burning. He knows he shouldn’t say it, but he can’t help himself.

“Are you okay?” Kyle asks.

And watching the change in Stan’s expression is like watching a crack spread over the surface of a frozen pond in slow motion. The visceral booming sound of ice splitting in the back of his skull and the lump that rises at the back of Kyle’s throat is the same, and he has to grip the rim of the chair he is sitting on to stop himself from melting in terror because that’s _his_ fault, that expression. He should have just kept his mouth shut and then Stan wouldn’t be hunched over in his seat with his brows screwed and his whole body quivering, like he is fighting all the forces of nature to resist falling to pieces on the floor.

“… Not really.” He says. The sugar packet falls to the table and spills little granules like constellations over the dark polished surface of the table. “Actually, I’m feeling pretty fucked up.”

And Kyle doesn’t really know what to say.

He feels himself flush, and fugitively he glances around the café to make sure no one is watching them because something about this feels so indecent he cant risk there being talk about this. The new Physics lecturer, caught having coffee with a student. Not even a post graduate student or someone closely linked to his faculty either, just Stan Marsh who plays football and does well on assignments when he didn’t have to sit them in class. Kyle realises suddenly and randomly that Stan’s great grades when he isn’t taking in class tests may in fact he due to external help. Online help, or maybe help from one of his friends. Kyle doesn’t know why this hadn’t occurred to him before.

“Okay.” He answers lamely, and Stan stares down at the spilled sugar like he is looking at his fate spelled out in letters on the grains.

“Did I do something wrong?” Stan asks him, and Kyle shakes his head almost instantly.

“No! Not at all! You didn’t do anything.”

But then he realises that now he has said that, he has to provide an explanation on why they can’t see each other. Why the cant talk and why, in the lecture theatre, Kyle can’t even look at him in case he gets distracted, and he decides to move to Vermont and get cirrhosis.

“Then what’s _wrong_. Why don’t you like me, Kyle? Am I really that much of an asshole?”

“No! I like you! I do! It’s just… ugh.”

It’s hopeless.

Kyle feels his last fragments of resistance turn to dust and blow away, and Stan looks at him like the child he is, begging for attention and reassurance and god knows what else.  Exasperated, lost, he lets his elbow rest on the table cups his chin in hand.

“Stan… Stan.”

“ _What_?”

He leans closer and places both his hands on the table. The teary dark blue of his eyes makes Kyle’s heart race like it hasn’t for years, and he stares with an intense desperation that reconciles his frantic facebook messaging with his relaxed body language and easy good looks. Funny, how much dissonance there can be between the body and the mind. Kyle can feel that in him now, the restless longing in his own heart all wrong and much too large for the small neat space of his head and his life. He wonders briefly, what it is Stan sees when he looks at him. Is it an old man, with a family and wrinkles around the corners of his lips, or is it his tender spots that leave him lying awake at night and missing those frantic moments, those brief seconds of his life where he thought someday he might be happy, before his family and his sensibilities tore him away from that.

His first love. His daydreams. The imagination palaces built between rumpled sheets and teenage hormones and the warmth of another hand wrapping strongly around his own.

Stan looks like the kind of person who might hold him like that. The kind of person who would always be warm, and who would hold his hand under the sheets at night but brush it off awkwardly in the morning.

“I Just… I don’t know Stan. It feels like I shouldn’t do this.”

He sucks a deep breath into his chest and set his hands flat on the table in front of him as well. Like this, their fingertips are less than an inch apart. Kyle can see that Stan bites his nails. That he is wearing an analogue watch that looks like it cost two dollars but the face says ‘BRAUN’ so that probably means it’s fancy. Fancy ish. Kyle’s watch is the same one he got for his bah mitzvah from some relative he never saw again. Its Guess, but it’s also gold and Kyle always thought it was kind of tacky.

“But you _like_ me don’t you?”

“It’s not that easy.” Kyle glances around again, but just like before no one is paying them attention. He feels dangerously exposed like this, but also he feels the tiniest little thrill. There is nothing not chaste about these moments, but inside his head his thoughts are on fire and the way Stan is looking at him makes him feel like he is being ravished. “I do like you Stan. I really, really, _really_ like you.”

Stan sniffs miserably, and Kyle notices the faintest flutter of a pulse visible in his throat.

”Well, say I like you too?”

“Well, you can’t.”

“Well, I do.” Stan sets his jaw and slides his fingers just a sliver closer to Kyle’s on the table. “I’m confused, and kind of scared, but I _really_ like you and I think that if you like me too then we should-“

“Sh!” Kyle brings his hand up in a frantic shushing gesture, and he feels his guts clench and unclench in a way that informs him that he may be getting a little worked up. Or a lot worked up. The grains of sugar still on the table and underneath the flesh of his remaining palm are starting to crunch and sting. “Keep your voice down!”

They are already whispering, and by this fact the conversation probably looks three times as suspicious as it needs to.

“Why? No one is listening!”

“Well still! Don’t just say it like that!”

How humiliating. This boy can see through him like he’s made of plastic wrap. Kyle has never felt so stupid in his life.

“I’m not a kid, Kyle.”

“I _know_ that!”

“I’m not just going to pretend like I don’t want to understand you. And be close to you.”

“There’s nothing to understand! I’m not that complicated, okay? I’m boring, and miserable, and you are young and beautiful and your life is so full of possibilities Stan! Do you even realise what I would _give_ to be you? If I were you, I wouldn’t be making friends with teachers, or wasting my time drinking at Denny’s on a Saturday night. I would be out there and living my life and taking what I want because I can. _You_ can.”

Stan scoffs through a sob, and Kyle feels his heart break even more than it already is.

“You make it sound so easy. It’s _not_ easy. I hate everything about my life. I don’t even understand why it is that I get out of bed most days, and I’m so fucking _lonely_ I just want to stay in my room and drink until I forget about it a lot of the time. You have so much, you have _everything_ that I don’t have, and you have things that I never _will_ have because I’m broke and I have no goals and if its so goddamned simple to just go out and take what you want from life, why don’t you just _do_ it Kyle?”

Kyle doesn’t really know what to say. He feels his cheeks getting hot, and he feels Stan’s eyes drill into him with a teary defiance and he wants to scream. He wants to punch him and bruise him and kiss him and bite him, and he wants to run away and hide because this is it, he feels like he is about to fall into nothingness and Stan is egging him on right now. He can feel it.

“I don’t know what I want,” He says quietly. “I haven’t known ever. I just let other people decide for me and I can’t remember the last time I was happy.”

Stan’s lips thin. Kyle’s whole body breaks out in goose pimples when he feels Stan’s fingertips press against his on the tabletop.

And suddenly Kyle understands that they are both just train wrecks. Both wasted human beings with nothing inside except pain and the desperate ache for company in the cruel loneliness of the world. He doesn’t know anything about Stan Marsh, but he knows enough about himself to understand that this boy will be the end of him. He’s like a black hole, he’s like oblivion. He is the void before the big bang and he contains all the potential that ever was and ever might be. But at the same time he is nothing but an endless stretch of emptiness and Kyle is falling into him at an impossible rate.

Stan Marsh will consume him, but if he doesn’t Kyle knows he will only end up consuming himself anyway.


	7. SEVEN: Stan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fuckin finally with the NSFW and shit like dang.

Stan pushes open the door like there isn’t a chance his roommate will be lying on his bed jerking off, and he lets Kyle go in first because that way, if anyone has to see Kenny beating it, it doesn’t have to be him for a change. He closes the door behind him and hears Kyle say ‘Oh, hi.’ as if the two of them have met before. Kenny seems surprised to see them, sitting at his desk and highlighting sections of a large textbook. He is staring as though they have just materialised out of thin air.

“… Sup?”

“Fuck off Kenny. I need the room.”

“What? Why?”

“Tutoring! Go annoy Butters or something!” Stan tosses his hat onto his bedside table and kicks his shoes in the general direction of his shoe pile. Kyle is standing around quietly and he looks calm, but his fingers are gripping the strap of his shoulder bag with a white knuckled intensity that makes Stan want to slap him. How can he remain so in control at a time like this? Kenny scowls and stands up, and Stan notices with a swoop of embarrassment that he is only wearing briefs on the bottom half of his body.

“Let me put some clothes on.” He says, grabbing a pair of grey sweatpants out of the laundry basket. “Fucking hell Stan. Two months and I can’t get you to answer a question with more than three words, and now you’re in here like someone lit a fire under your ass.”

He grabs his pencil and highlighter and glares at Stan as hard as he can before swooping past and wrenching open the door.

“… That’s Kenny.” Stan informs Kyle stiffly as he slams it closed behind him. Kyle nods and looks down at his feet.

“I know. We met once.”

Stan doesn’t know when that might have ever been a thing that happened, but he shrugs and thrusts a thumb in the direction of his bed just in case Kyle wants to sit down or something. Kyle doesn’t – he bites his lip and looks at Stan like he is worried he is going to start crying again.

“… Are you sure this is okay?”

“Sure.” he lies.  “Why not. What’s the worst that could happen?”

He knows that this is enough to get Kyle fired, and himself expelled, but he doesn’t care because some part of him really needs it, and even though he decided on the walk from the cafe that he is going to fuck this man in front of him he still insists to himself that there is a possibility he won’t. There is still a chance that he will keep it together, that he is a good person who isn’t going to do exactly what Kyle said he should and take what he wants. Surely fucking someone who is not only older than him but also so beautiful and kind counts as doing something really terrible? Unforgivably terrible. Even though he is starting to suspect Kyle wants it real bad as well. He hasn’t said it, but he is looking at Stan like he is dying to kiss him, so Stan is glad that at least right now that the feeling is mutual.

He sighs and sits down on the edge of his bed where Kyle has not.

“So this is where I live.” He says, skirting the subject of possibly making out and gesturing to the decorations on the wall. Kenny has playboy pull outs on the ceiling and the bathroom door. Stan’s little corner of miscellany boasts a poster that says SUPPORT THE ASPCA and a few ticket stubs from when he went with Wendy to see some band he hated. There is dirty laundry in his desk chair and Kenny’s large and ugly bong is sitting in plain sight on the windowsill. He made it out of an empty diet double dew bottle.

“… Is that yours?” Kyle asks, nodding at the abomination and making Stan screw up his nose.

“No. I don’t smoke.”

“I used to.” Kyle sits down a few inches away from Stan and pulls off his bag. “When I knew Eric.”

Stan doesn’t ask who Eric is, but for some reason, it makes him nod, and as they fall silent he feels the gnawing feeling of loneliness spread up from his belly into his chest. Kyle is so close. Within touching distance. Will being able to hold him make him feel better immediately or not?

It’s funny, he had expected a lot of shit to happen to him in his life, but bringing home a teacher to fuck like he was a one night stand? Stan can hardly believe he has sunk that low. He doesn’t feel disgusted by it, rather he just feels kind of numb – it is a shock which he is sure he will forget in time, but even though he feels nothing he is conscious of the physical sensation of burning in his cheeks. He knows that his face is flushed and his hands are shaking, and he can feel his pulse racing like he is going into panic mode. But _why_?

“… Thanks for inviting me, I suppose.” Kyle interrupts his thoughts, and Stan feels like he is moving in slow motion when he blinks and turns to look at him. Those tired brown eyes seem like the most beautiful things he has ever seen. Kyle’s hair is the colour of a sunset over the desert.

“… I figured you wouldn’t want to sit in a café and watch me cry.”

“Not really.”

Stan feels the rims of his eyes grow wet again, and he pulls himself together by rubbing the back of his hand against his nose.

“Well, thank _you_ for coming.” He says “I didn’t mean to embarrass you. Or make you uncomfortable. I just kind of panicked because you really scared me when you said you didn’t want to hang out any more.”

Stan knows this is stupid, but it’s true. He appreciates that Kyle doesn’t laugh at him when he replies.

“It wasn’t embarrassing. Just… I could get in trouble, you know?”

“… These days you could get in trouble for anything.”

“Yeah. I suppose.” Kyle looks down at his feet and Stan watches him twisting his wedding ring nervously on his finger. He feels his heart spasm, and he wants to ask about her but he resists. Kyle probably doesn’t want to be reminded.

“Is this the first time you’ve ever done something just because _you_ want to then?”

“First time since high school, yeah.”

The ghost of a bitter smile curves the corners of Kyle’s lips, and it’s actually very beautiful.

Stan sucks in a deep breath and leans close to him.

“I’m going to kiss you now.” He says. Kyle doesn’t say no, he just inhales deeply and closes his eyes.

It’s a lot different from kissing Wendy. It’s a lot different from kissing anyone, actually, because Kyle’s lips are a different shape and he smells like aftershave and coffee and something else which feels like it should be written about in books and romanticised in movies but unfortunately, lacks any kind of recognisable name. His mouth is warm though, and he melts in the same way butter softens when it’s heated – slowly, and then quickly, and by the time Stan manages to cup his face between his hands Kyle is shaking a little and kissing him back. It’s like he is stunned, and possibly dreaming, and Kyle feels for his shirt with trembling hands and pulls him close so they are locked together. Stan lets his tongue slide between soft lips and against the sharp points of foreign teeth. Kyle moans like he has been dying for this his whole life.

Something warms in parts of his heart Stan had forgotten about. He sucks gently as he pulls back, and when he opens his eyes Kyle is still sitting there with his own eyes closed, his shoulders tensed like he is waiting to be told he has done something evil and that he should rot in hell for even daring to try something so despicable.

Stan wants to hold him and tell him that everything will be okay, that nothing will ever hurt him again.

“Okay?” he breathes, and Kyle nods quickly, his cheeks colouring and his eyes fluttering open so he can look Stan straight in the eye.

“Fine. I’m still alive I guess.”

“… Maybe I didn’t kiss you hard enough.”

This makes him laugh just a little bit, and inspired by the sudden rush of butterflies in his stomach Stan grabs him and kisses him again. Kyle is surprised at first but then he gives in just like he did the first time. His lips part and he runs his nails against the side of Stan’s throat – something that sends extremely pleasurable sensations down his spine. They fall back against the mattress, and Stan doesn’t even care that his bed is unmade. He pulls the other body underneath him, and finds that Kyle is heavier than he looks. When Stan kisses him harder he feels the faint scratch of invisible stubble, and when he presses a thigh between his legs he is unnerved and excited to feel his erection.

This is new and wonderful. Something right and wrong at the same time. His breath becomes short and Kyle sinks his fingers into his back like he is the last real thing in the universe to cling to. The sensation conjures blossoms of pleasure on the surface of Stan’s skin.

“You’ve fucked men before?” he asks as they part. Kyle nods, watching him sit back and pull his shirt up over his head.

“Not for a long time though.”

“It’s like riding a bike.” Stan has had enough alternative sex with Wendy that he knows the ins and outs of taking phallic objects up the ass. “If you did it one time, you will be able to do it the next.”

“Don’t you mean ‘Once you learn you never forget’?”

Stan shrugs and fumbles down the fly of his jeans. He is a physics major, not a lit student.

“Basically the same thing right?”

This earns a short, breathless snigger, which sounds a lot like it could result in a bout of anxious fainting.

“Sure. Why not? Holy fuck.”

When Stan kneels up and shucks his jeans, he almost thinks Kyle is going to loose his nerve because he takes one look at the outline of his dick in the front of his underwear and turns porcelain white.

“What?”

His chest hurts at the thought of Kyle deciding he doesn’t want to do this now. They are here, and Stan is feeling more alive than he has in the longest time, but he is sure that from the moment he offered to bring Kyle home there was no going back for him - He has to have this or he will torture himself forever remembering it. These seconds where the coolness of the air is making the hairs on his legs prickle. These seconds where he is almost naked and completely vulnerable and Kyle is still wearing his jeans and his shirt, and then _Stan_ almost looses his nerve because what if he fucks it up somehow or embarrasses himself?

He has never had stage fright before. He doesn’t like it one bit.

“That’s a big fucking dick, Stan.”

Of course, Stan doesn’t know what to say.

A few seconds pass while Kyle realises what has just come out of his mouth, and in the intermediary Stan feels a huge awkward bubble of embarrassed laughter well up inside of him like a geyser rocketing through arteries inside the earth. He can’t stop it, he couldn’t if he tried, and he doesn’t want to because it brings with it a wave of delirious euphoria that seems to flood him. He feels a glowing sense of _joy_ like he can’t remember, and before Kyle can become flustered or apologetic for saying something so reckless Stan kisses him. His mouth, his nose, his eyes and cheeks and the side of his jaw, and he twists his fingers in curling red hair so that Kyle’s breath catches and he is fumbling to remove his own clothing too. Eventually, they are both naked, and bare skin presses against bare skin along every inch of their bodies. Stan finds the personal lubricant Kenny keeps with his porn magazines and performs the usual preparations, except Kyle seems to enjoy the feeling of having fingers in him more than Wendy. Maybe it’s an anatomical thing, or maybe it’s Stan’s bias.

He curls his fingers up and rubs against Kyle’s prostate – Stan can’t tell if its been so long, or if Kyle has never been touched here before, because he bears down like he knows how to help Stan reach it but he responds like he didn’t realise it was possible to feel so much pleasure in one moment.

“It’s good, right?” Stan asks, and he nods even though he looks like he can barely manage to process what he is hearing.

“Holy shit Stan. Oh my _god_.”

Stan feels vaguely prideful warmth in his belly, slipping his fingers out a few inches before pressing back in again and making Kyle tremble.

“Want my dick?”

Kyle bites his lip and nods again, his eyes fluttering as Stan traces small, slow circles against his prostate.

“Can’t hear you.”

Stan doesn’t know why he is teasing him like this. Maybe there is some satisfaction to be had in hearing him say it. Maybe it is just revenge for trying to deny that he wanted Stan to fuck him in the first place. Kyle gasps and twists in agony on the mattress.

“Yes! Fucking yes, just do it already!”

Stan doesn’t respond. He just removes his fingers and slides his dick in instead, and he hasn’t had actual sex for over a month now so it’s like easing himself into heaven. Kyle’s body is warm and his thighs fit comfortably against his hips. A flood of precum gushes from Kyle’s erection as Stan takes him, and mesmerised by the fine red hairs that snail down his belly from his navel Stan touches thee contours of an alien form. He has a circumcision scar and there are freckles on his upper legs. When Stan pulls back and pushes himself back in again slowly, Kyle pulls up fistfuls of the duvet and moans in a way that makes stan ache to ask.

“You like that?”

He has never been talkative in bed, but for some reason he really wants to narrate every moment with Kyle because doing so almost makes it more real. It keeps him in the moment, and blocks out the world outside, and it’s easier to focus on the way Kyle’s body is hard and quivering, his muscles tensed and his nipples small rigid pinpricks on his chest.

“ _Yeah_ …”

“This is really happening, huh?” Stan can’t quite believe it himself. If he couldn’t hear his own voice, he would think he was dreaming. “I’m inside you Kyle. Can you feel that?”

Kyle gasps and arches his back against the bed, and Stan starts to find a slow, regular rhythm with his hips. God he feels good. Warmth licks at the base of Stan’s spine and tingles in the insides of his legs.

“Oh fuck, _Stan.”_

Stan loves the way he says his name, like he is savouring every sound. Does he like hearing Stan’s voice too, knowing that it’s the voice of one of his students? Does he like being able to feel Stan’s fingers on his waist, and Stan’s mouth against the shell of his ear, and does he get off on knowing that this is what happens when he looses himself completely? He has always been so cold before, too scared to enjoy uninhibited pleasure, and Stan can tell because he comes undone like it’s his very first orgasm. Like it’s his first time feeling someone licking at his neck, and curling their fingers around his erection, and breathing against his lips while he shudders and lets out a tiny, shallow gasp of relief.

_“Imgunnacum..”_

Stan is too. He feels it sweeping up his back as Kyle grips his face and kisses him, and he comes as the dick in his hand spurts wet between their stomachs and Kyle’s thighs clench on his hips. The heat of his mouth and the rushing, spine tingling release of muscles takes Stan to the outer rim of his reality, and the fall back into his body is like falling endlessly through the void.

Right now, while he is weightless, he thinks that this is all he ever could have wanted. 


	8. EPILOGUE

Kyle checks his watch to make sure that eleven o’clock hasn’t arrived yet. The room is full of nothing but the sound of rustling papers and scratching pens, and even though he started the semester with almost a hundred students he has reached the end and only sixty seven remain. Of those sixty seven, only about fifty have shown up for the exam.

Stan Marsh is not one of them.

Kyle sighs and doodles spirals on the edges of his notes. He is supposed to be planning a book or something – whatever it was that people with PhDs did once they received their qualification and needed to conjure the remainder of the money to pay for it. Someone sitting in the back row coughs quietly, and Kyle snaps his head up to make sure there isn’t any cheating happening - Mostly out of principle rather than a genuine desire to prevent fraudulent grades. When he scans the sea of bowed heads and sees no cheat sheets or discreet checking of clothing or skin, he sighs once more, and returns his attention to his note making.

He is distracted when his cellphone starts vibrating, and it rattles on the desk so that a wave of nervous sniffs and giggles moves through the class like a wave.

He stumbles an apology and picks it up, and his voice echoes loudly in the quiet hall. Everyone rolls their eyes and goes back to writing their papers.

_Finished yet??_

Stan has a terrible habit of texting him at bad times. Kyle responds with a short _no._ and shoves his phone back into his pocket. He feels it go off again as the last half hour passes, but he does not check it until he has taken all the papers and placed them carefully in the marking envelope he was given that morning.

“Okay everyone. Thanks for a great semester, good luck with your studies next year.”

There is a loud squeaking of chairs and rattling of pencils as everyone stands to leave, and on the way out the door a few students even give him cool little smiles which Kyle returns with the air of professionalism and competence he has learned to fake so well.

He picks the marking envelope off the desk and grabs his satchel filled with rubbish up off the floor. As he leaves the hall, he dumps the envelope of exams in the recycling bin and turns out the lights.

Stan is waiting in the carpark. He is sitting on the hood of a white Mitsubishi and drinking a tall slushie, and the back of the vehicle is full of boxes and bags and one large black suitcase. Stan had been right, there was plenty of room, and the vehicle didn’t even look as tacky as it had sounded when Stan described it to him.

“This is it then?” Kyle asks as he approaches, and Stan is so surprised he almost drops his slushie.

“Fuck! You gave me a fright dude.”

“Sorry. Can I chuck this in here?” Kyle gestures to his satchel and Stan shrugs, indicating that the back door is unlocked and he can do what he wants.

“Whatever. I’m ready to leave now if you like. Unless there’s anything you’ve forgotten?”

Kyle shakes his head and pulls open the back door of the car. His passport and a black clear file of documents are tucked into one of the net pockets on the back of the drivers seat. He removes his cellphone from his bag as he deposits it, before stepping back and once again shutting the door.

“Nope. That’s everything.”

Stan tosses him the keys and slides of the hood of the car. Kyle likes how he looks in washed out jeans and a black tank singlet. His skin tans like Kyle’s doesn’t, and summer looks good on him. Looking at him is like looking into the halo of the sun.

“Where are you taking us first?”

“I dunno yet.” Kyle sips his wedding ring off and drops it idly onto the tarmac. “Can we go anywhere?”

Stan nods and rounds the side of the vehicle to the passenger door.

“Yup anywhere. Drive us to Mexico if you want to. Drive us to the last circle of hell.”

Kyle smiles and drops his cell phone too. The screen cracks when it hits the ground and he kicks it under the wheel so that when they drive off they will crush it properly. He thinks that’s very probably exactly where they are going, but whatever.

Anywhere in the world is better than here.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok that’s all folks u don’t have to go home but u can’t stay here.


End file.
